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TO 

MY   FATHER   AND    MY    MOTHER 

WHOSE   SERVICES   TO    KENTUCKY 

IN   THE   CAUSE   OF   EDUCATION   AND    INTELLECTUAL 
FREEDOM    WOULD    HAVE   DELIGHTED 

HENRY   CLAY 

HAD    HE   LIVED   TO   WITNESS 
THEM 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

•»"   I.—  INTRODUCTION  ................       17 

•^IL^YOUTH      ...................        21 

MIL  —  CLAY  AS  A  LAWYER  *  .............  34 

IV.  —  CLAY  AS  A  FARMER     .............  44 

•"    V.—  THE  YOUNGEST  SENATOR*  ...........      56 

t^  VI.—  WAR-HAWK   .*  ................  64 

*    VII.—  PEACE-MAKER"  ................      76 

VIII.—  THE  SPEAKER    .*<  '.    .    .x    ..........  9°  *•*•* 

IX.  —  CLAY  AS  A  DUELLIST  .............  104 

X.  —  "THE  CORRUPT  BARGAIN"    ..........  124 

**"     XI.—  SECRETARY  OF  STATE  ......  ^  .......  138  -~~ 

XII.  —  CLAY  ON  SLAVERY    ..............  145 

""  XIII.  —  PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  .-  .........  157  *P* 

XIV.—  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CANDIDATE     ........  172  •*- 

XV.  —  LOSING  CANDIDATE  FOR  NOMINATIONS    .....  194  ••— 

XVI.  —  CLAY  IN  DEFEAT  ...............  204 

*-•  XVII.  —  THE  AMERICAN  SYSTEM  ............  214  *-~ 

«^  X  VIII.—  THE  COMPROMISER  *T"  r  ............  235    ^ 

••      XIX.—  THE  TRIUMVIRATE  .............  248 

*"     XX.—  CLAY  AND  THE  BANKV^*:    ...........  267  K 

XXI.  —  SENATORIAL  COLLOQUIES     ...........  286 

XXII.  —  PUBLIC  LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES  303 

XXIII.  —PARTY  DICTATOR  .    .  ,.,,  .   ...........  320 

XXIV.  —  THE  COMPROMISES  OF  1850    ..........  333 

XXV.  —  PRESERVER  OF  THE  UNION    ".   .........  357    *•*• 

XXVI.—  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH     ...........  366 

XXVIL—  HENRY  CLAY  THE  MAN  J?.   .       .    ,    .....  374   ^ 


ii 


239910 


List  of  Illustrations  with  Notes 

PAGE 

HENRY  CLAY  IN  MIDDLE  LIFE Frontispiece 

( From  a  painting  by  Dubourjal.  This,  though  rare,  is  considered 
one  of  the  most  interesting  portraits  of  the  statesman.) 

BIRTHPLACE  OF  HENRY  CLAY 22 

( Burned  down  about  a  century  ago.  It  was  typical  of  the  period 
when  slave  cabins  adjoined  the  family  "mansion."  From  an  old 
print.) 

SCHOOL-HOUSE  OF  "THE  SLASHES" 22 

(Here  Henry  Clay  received  his  elementary  education,  which  was 
practically  all  he  ever  received  in  any  school.  From  an  old  print.) 

MRS.  HENRY  CLAY 32 

(From  a  portrait  painted  by  Oliver  Frazer,  in  the  possession  of  Mrs. 
Henry  C.  McDowell,  a  granddaughter  of  Mrs.  Clay.  The  portrait 
was  an  unfinished  one,  and  was  discovered  after  the  death  of  the 
painter.  It  is  believed  to  have  been  painted  about  1851,  in  which 
year  Mr.  Frazer  also  painted  a  portrait  of  Mr.  Clay.  The  delicacy 
of  outline  of  the  face  and  the  sensitiveness  of  the  lips  and  eyes 
would  indicate  that  Mrs.  Clay  was  at  this  time  a  woman  of  consider 
able  charm  of  appearance.  Copyright,  1897,  by  the  S.  S.  McClure 
Company.  By  courtesy  of  "  McClure's  Magazine.") 

ORIGINAL  COURT-HOUSE 38 

(Here  Henry  Clay  made  his  first  reputation  as  a  lawyer.  From  the 
second  story  window  a  lynching  took  place.) 

THE  PADDOCKS  AT  ASHLAND  (1904),  AND  DESCENDANTS  OF 
THE  FAMOUS  THOROUGHBREDS  OWNED  BY  HENRY  CLAY  .      50 

(From  a  photograph  taken  for  this  volume.) 

THE  PHCENIX  HOTEL,  LEXINGTON      68 

(This  famous  hostelry  was  for  many  years  Whig  political  headquar 
ters  in  Kentucky.  Here  Clay  dined  frequently,  and  his  farm  sup 
plied  produce  for  its  table.  From  a  photograph  taken  about  1854.) 

13 


LIST  ,QF   ILLUSTRATIONS  WITH   NOTES 

PAGE 

JOINT  NOTE  OF  COMMISSIONERS  CLAY  AND  GALLATIN  TO 
LORD  CASTLEREAGH  DURING  TREATY  NEGOTIATIONS  IN 
LONDON,  IN  CLAY'S  HANDWRITING.  PROBABLY  NEVER 
DELIVERED 82 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Ky. 
Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

HENRY  CLAY,  SPEAKER 94 

(This  portrait  was  painted  in  1814,  by  J.  W.  Jarvis,  for  Mrs.  Clay 
before  her  husband  sailed  for  Europe.  Original  hanging  at  Ashland. 
Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

HENRY  CLAY'S  BEDSTEAD 116 

(This  bed  was  used  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clay  for  over  fifty  years.  Now 
in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  John  M.  Clay,  Lexington,  Ky.) 

LETTER  OF  PRESIDENT  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  TO  HENRY 
CLAY  WHEN  THE  LATTER  WAS  SECRETARY  OF  STATE  .  .  142 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Ky. 
Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

THE  OLD  RACETRACK  AT  ASHLAND  WHERE  HENRY  CLAY 
TRAINED  HIS  FAMOUS  THOROUGHBREDS 156 

(From  a  photograph  taken  for  this  volume.) 

A  CLAY  CARTOON  OF  1844  ("THE  SAME  OLD  COON")     .    .    194 

(In  1840  William  Henry  Harrison  ran  for  President  and  the  Demo 
crats  at  first  made  fun  of  him  as  a  man  who  lived  in  a  log  cabin  with 
a  coonskin  on  the  door.  The  coon  became  a  Whig  emblem  as  later 
the  elephant  became  that  of  the  Republican  party.  From  the  col 
lection  of  Hon.  Hampton  L.  Carson.) 

A  CLAY  CAMPAIGN  BANNER  OF  1844 208 

(In  1844  this  form  of  political  advertising  was  popular.  The  design 
here  reproduced  was  used  for  banners  and  colored  lithographs. 
"Justice"  in  this  case  referred  to  the  fact  that  Clay  was  the  party 
choice  in  1840,  and  had  been  cheated  out  of  the  nomination.  From 
the  collection  of  Hon.  Hampton  L.  Carson.) 

THOMAS  H.  CLAY 226 

(A  son  of  Henry  Clay,  who  was  with  him  in  his  last  hours.  The 
resemblance  to  his  father  was  very  marked,  and  an  interesting  com 
parison  may  be  made  of  this  picture  with  the  portrait  of  Henry  Clay 
facing  page  252.  From  a  portrait  in  possession  of  Thomas  H.  Clay, 
Lexington,  Ky.) 

14 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  WITH   NOTES 

PAGE 

JACKSON,  WEBSTER,  AND  CLAY 252 

(This  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  groups  in  American  portraiture. 
It  is  a  copy  of  a  steel  engraving  by  John  Sartain,  from  a  print  in  the 
possession  of  Hon.  Hampton  L.  Carson,  of  Philadelphia.  Internal 
evidence  is  that  Sartain  intended  a  portrait  of  The  Triumvirate,  and 
by  mistake  used  a  portrait  of  Jackson  instead  of  Calhoun.  The  two 
resembled  each  other  physically  in  marked  degree.  It  seems  rather 
than  spoil  the  plate  Sartain  let  the  picture  stand,  though  it  is  absurd 
to  imagine  Jackson  in  the  group.) 


ASHLAND  AS  IT  WAS  IN  HENRY  CLAY'S  TIME 266 

(From  an  old  print.) 

HENRY  CLAY 292 

(From  a  daguerrotype  taken  in  1847.  Declared  by  many  of  his  most 
intimate  friends  to  be  the  most  characteristic  portrait  of  Clay's  ma- 
turer  years  that  exists.  Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

ONLY  MEMORANDUM  IN  EXISTENCE  USED  BY  HENRY  CLAY 
IN  SPEAKING 306 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Ky. 
Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL  HENRY  CLAY,  JR 316 

(Killed  at  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista.  This  son  resembled  his  father 
in  many  respects,  and  alone  seemed  likely  to  follow  in  his  footsteps. 
Original  at  Ashland.  Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

ASHLAND  AS  IT  is  TO-DAY 322 

(Now  owned  by  Mrs.  H.  C.  McDowell,  a  granddaughter  of  Henry 
Clay.     From  a  photograph  taken  for  this  volume.) 

HENRY  CLAY  AND  WIFE 342 

( From  a  daguerrotype  taken  about  the  time  of  their  golden  wedding. 
In  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Ky.,  and  photo 
graphed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

LETTER  WRITTEN  BY  HENRY  CLAY  TO  HIS  WIFE  ABOUT  A 
YEAR  AND  A  HALF  BEFORE  HIS  DEATH 358 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Ky. 
Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS  WITH    NOTES 

PACK 

LETTER  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  TO  JOHN  M.  CLAY,  SON  OF 
HENRY  CLAY,  DEALING  WITH  THE  GREAT  COMMONER'S 
VIEWS  ON  THE  UNION 364 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  M.  Clay,  Lexington,  Ky.  Pho 
tographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 

HENRY  CLAY'S  MONUMENT  AT  LEXINGTON 372 

(In  1902  lightning  knocked  off  the  head  of  the  superimposed  statue, 
and  the  Kentucky  Legislature  refused  to  make  an  appropriation  to 
repair  it.  From  a  photograph  taken  for  this  volume.) 


16 


The  True  Henry  Clay 


INTRODUCTION 

HENRY  CLAY  is  fast  becoming  a  mythical  personage. 
One  of  the  most  vigorous,  certainly  the  most  emo 
tional,  and  one  of  the  most  influential  of  statesmen 
has  been  lost  in  a  haze  of  misinformation  ;  befogged 
in  a  mist  of  fable  and  transformed  by  a  sort  of  men 
tal  strabismus  which  has  affected  all  his  admirers. 
The  Henry  Clay  of  fiction,  so  artfully  constructed, 
like  the  heroes  of  ancient  mythology,  is  a  distressing 
figure.  Henry  Clay  was  one  of  the  most  lovable 
men  who  ever  lived,  if  not  in  all  respects  the  most 
admirable.  None  knew  him  but  to  love  him,  though 
a  majority  would  never  vote  for  him. 

There  is  no  danger  that  Henry  Clay  will  be  for 
gotten.  Every  school-boy  is  familiar  with  the  name. 
Every  stump-speaker,  no  matter  what  his  politics, 
constantly  invokes  him  with  an  ignorance  of  his 
.character  and  career  that  is  sublimely  ridiculous. 
Henry  Clay  will  last  forever  ;  but  it  is  much  to  be 
feared  that  the  survival  will  be  a  ghost,  and  not  the 
full-blooded,  true-hearted,  impulsive,  chivalrous,  im 
perious  Kentuckian. 

An  effort  is  made  in  this  volume,  by  one  who  was 
born  on  Clay  soil  and  reared  in  the  best  traditions  of 
Kentucky,  to  tell  the  truth  about  Clay  and  his 
achievements  and  failures. 

17 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Here  is  no  effort  to  analyze  or  explain,  uphold  or 
condemn  Henry  Clay  in  the  light  of  present  knowl 
edge.  Times  have  changed  in  a  century,  and  we 
have  changed.  We  must  light  the  lamps  of  the  past 
to  get  the  proper  light  in  which  to  >ead  its  pages. 
We  commonly  speak  of  Jefferson,  of  Webster,  of 
Calhoun,  and  of  many  others  by  their  last  names  ; 
but  it  is  always  Henry  Clay  who  comes  in  evidence. 
To  omit  his  first  name  is  to  throw  the  hearer  into 
confusion.  Henry  Clay  is  no  longer  a  name,  but 
an  institution. 

But  there  are  fallacies  to  be  cleared  away. 

It  is  generally  assumed  that  he  was  the  father  of 
protection.  In  truth  he  was  only  a  sort  of  step-father 
who  at  an  important  period  gave  his  foster-child  not 
only  a  scolding,  but  a  drubbing  which  nearly  resulted 
in  death. 

It  is  often  assumed  that  he  was  the  father  of 
the  sound-money  doctrine  because  he  was  a  fervent 
champion  of  the  National  Bank.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
he  was  wabbly  on  this  subject,  voting,  as  a  rule, 
against  Benton's  specie  standard,  which  is  to-day  the 
law  of  the  land.  His  first  great  speech  in  the  Senate 
was  against  the  bank. 

It  is  sometimes  assumed  that  he  was  the  real  father 
of  the  law  to  give  the  settler  on  the  public  lands  a 
free  or  very  cheap  title.  In  reality  he  was  usually  on 
the  opposite  side,  demanding  big  prices,  but  offering 
the  surplus  as  a  largess  to  the  States. 

It  is  well  known  that  he  was  the  personal  objur- 
gator  of  slavery  and  politically  opposed  to  its  exten 
sion.  The  acts  he  fathered  or  originated  show  that 
he  unconsciously  helped  extend  the  institution  to 
which  he  was  so  conscientiously  opposed.  He  was 
not  always  a  moral  hero,  though  a  courageous  man. 

He  is  called  the  great  compromiser  or  pacificator. 
Yet  some  of  his  measures  were  surrenders,  and  his 

18 


INTRODUCTION 

last  great  stand  was  simply  the  precursor  of  civil  war, 
which  was  staved  off  until  it  became  more  deadly. 

It  can  be  said  that  at  times  Clay  was  on  opposite 
sides  of  a  number  of  very  important  questions.  It 
is  no  longer  proper  to  accuse  a  statesman  of  incon 
sistency  because  he  changes  his  mind.  Opportunism 
has  become  a  fixed  principle  in  practical  politics,  but 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  not 
so  highly  esteemed,  and  certainly  Clay  ran  the  whole 
gamut  and  was  himself  the  chief  victim  of  his  own 
vagaries. 

The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  While  physically 
and  mentally  Clay  was  a  great,  strong  man,  tempera 
mentally  he  was  constituted  like  a  woman.  His  in 
stincts  were,  as  a  rule,  unerring ;  his  second  thoughts 
were  apt  to  be  wrong.  As  soon  as  he  began  to  argue 
with  himself,  consult  personal  or  other  interests,  he 
became  mentally  and  morally  befogged.  When  he 
began  to  doubt,  he  was  lost.  Like  a  woman,  he 
was  warm-hearted,  impulsive,  self-sacrificing.  As  a 
man,  he  was  deficient  in  that  fundamental  determina 
tion  which  is  the  mainstay  of  great  character. /When 
he  might  have  given  way  without  loss  of  prestige  or 
principle,  he  was  adamant ;  when  he  should  have 
been  firm,  he  relented,  hesitated,  and  was  lost.  This 
characteristic  was  congenital,  beyond  his  control. 
He  had  courage  and  often  braved  public  opinion, 
but,  unfortunately,  in  politics  he  could  lay  but  not 
follow  a  direct  course.  Men  of  less  caliber  have 
come  down  in  history  with  better  reputations. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  Clay  is  one  of  the  most 
delightful  studies, — a  man  for  whom  there  is  constant 
affection  felt ;  and  if  his  failings  did  not  always  lean 
to  virtue's  side,  they  were,  as  a  rule,  so  bound  up 
with  human  nature  that  he  escaped  censure  where 
others  less  reprehensible  were  roundly  scored. 

In  one  respect  Henry  Clay  was  as  fixed  and  con- 
19 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

stant  as  the  polar  star.  He  loved  the  Union,  never 
listened  for  a  moment  to  any  of  the  wiles  or  threats 
of  disunionists,  and  in  his  last  days  threatened  to  go 
against  Kentucky,  much  as  he  loved  her  and  much 
as  she  had  honored  him,  if  at  any  time  she  attempted 
secession.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  some  of  his 
legislation  really  encouraged  the  separatist  propa 
ganda,  but  that  was  not  his  intention.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  dead  bones  of  Henry  Clay  and  his  still  living 
words  of  patriotism  kept  Kentucky  in  1 86 1-2  from 
going  precipitately  into  secession.  And  that  Ken 
tucky  stood  firm  was  perhaps  the  most  crucial  event 
of  all  that  long  contest. 

He  was  a  very  great  man.  We  shall  not  soon  look 
upon  his  like  again. 

Finally,  though  Clay  is  a  household  word,  there 
is,  perhaps,  only  one  expression  of  his  that  has 
become  fixed  in  the  public  mind  :  "  I  would  rather 
be  right  than  President"  is  made  the  constant 
theme  of  moral  lectures,  is  quoted  on  all  occasions. 
While  Clay  undoubtedly  believed  this  statement  when 
he  made  it,  the  truth  is  that  he  wanted  to  be  President 
so  badly  that  in  this  very  campaign  he  said  and  did 
things  which  alienated  from  him  the  support  of  the 
most  conscientious  people  in  the  land,  and  these  cost 
him  the  election.  This  shows  the  strange  intellectual 
and  moral  make-up  of  the  man.  Clay  could  not  lie. 
He  was  as  frank  as  possible.  He  was,  however,  an 
arch-deceiver ;  but  he  deceived  only  one  person, 
and  that  was  himself.  Moreover,  Henry  Clay  was 
the  most  lovable  American  that  ever  lived.  That  is 
a  sufficient  epitaph  for  any  one.  Those  who  love 
much  ire  forgiven  everything,  and  this  has  been  the 
happy  fate  of  Henry  Clay. 


20 


II 

YOUTH 

HENRY  CLAY  was  precocious.  It  was  his  misfor 
tune  to  have  blossomed  too  soon,  to  have  achieved 
eminence  at  the  time  most  young  men  are  struggling 
for  a  hearing.  In  his  whole  career  we  can  see  how 
much  misfortune  he  owed  to  defective  education, — 
not  only  that  of  books,  but  of  varied  experience. 
Normally,  a  man  must  gain  most  that  is  valuable 
through  hard  knocks  which  he  gets  in  competition 
with  others.  This  sort  of  training  gives  him  a  per 
spective  of  life  which  is  invaluable.  It  tends  to  con 
servatism,  to  make  him  consider  well  the  opposition, 
so  that  he  gets  a  sense  of  proportion  which  is  funda 
mental  in  a  well-rounded  character. 

In  these  respects  Clay  was  lamentably  lacking. 
He  achieved  success  so  easily  that  he  quite  mis 
understood  others  and  overestimated  himself.  His 
defeats  came  too  late  in  life.  They  chastened  him, 
disheartened  him  for  a  time,  but  never  taught  him. 
The  rebound  always  came,  and  the  buoyancy  of 
hope  carried  him  along  each  time  until  victory  was 
in  his  grasp,  when,  as  usual,  it  faded  away.  From 
youth  to  age  he  was  alternately  on  the  heights  of 
exhilaration  or  in  the  depths  of  despair.  Nature 
had  lavished  her  gifts  upon  him,  but  he  often  failed 
to  make  proper  use  of  them. 

His  title  of  the  "  Mill  Boy  of  the  Slashes"  came 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  born  in  a  section  of  Han 
over  County,  Virginia,  known  as  "The  Slashes." 
Of  his  ancestry  little  is  known,  except  that  his  family 

21 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

had  settled  on  the  James  in  early  times.  Clay  never 
believed  in  the  ancestral  tables  provided  by  super- 
serviceable  admirers  which  would  have  given  him 
forbears  of  rank  in  the  old  country.  He  would 
have  cared  little  could  they  have  been  established. 
Clay  was  ambitious  to  be  notable  as  an  ancestor  and 
not  as  a  descendant  His  father,  John  Clay,  was  a 
Baptist  clergyman  with  a  wide  reputation  as  an  elo 
quent  preacher,  who  died  when  Henry  was  four 
years  old. 

The  official  date  of  Henry's  birth  is  given  as  April 
12,  1777,  but  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  late  in  his 
career,  when  past  threescore  and  ten,  but  still  ambi 
tious  of  the  Presidency,  his  opponents  tried  to  show 
that  he  was  born  in  1775.  Even  Horace  Greeley 
seems  to  have  been  impressed  with  the  evidence. 
There  was  a  Henry  born  in  1775,  who  died,  and  the 
future  statesman  took  his  name.  The  widow  Clay 
soon  married  Captain  Henry  Watkins,  of  Richmond, 
bringing  him  seven  encumbrances,  of  whom  Henry 
was  the  fifth.  To  Watkins' s  credit  be  it  said,  he  was 
as  nearly  as  possible  all  a  natural  father  could  have 
been.  At  The  Slashes  Henry  had  received  a  meagre 
education  while  assisting  his  mother  as  best  he  could. 
The  fact  that  he  used  occasionally  to  take  "a  turn 
of  meal"  to  the  grist-mill,  as  has  nearly  every  country 
boy  in  the  South,  was  the  sole  basis  for  the  term 
applied  to  him  in  political  campaigns  to  rouse  pop 
ular  enthusiasms,  though  never  with  success. 

At  fourteen  Henry  was  put  to  clerking  in  a  store  in 
Richmond,  whither  the  family  had  removed.  Stories 
are  told  of  his  willingness  to  do  his  duty,  though  the 
work  was  distasteful  to  him.  Once  he  was  reproved  by 
the  storekeeper  for  wasting  too  much  string.  There 
after  he  saved  every  scrap  he  could  get  and  tied 
the  pieces  together.  Again,  it  was  explained  that 
using  this  sort  of  string  might  be  offensive  to  the 

22 


YOUTH 

customers,  as  it  made  the  packages  look  untidy,  by 
reason  of  so  many  knots.  So  he  consulted  with 
a  sailor  at  Richmond,  who  showed  him  how  to  splice 
strings  in  a  way  that  knots  were  not  shown.  From 
that  time  he  spent  his  leisure  hours  making  short 
strings  of  the  same  size  into  a  continuous  cord. 
When  his  employer  discovered  this,  he  was  so  much 
pleased  that  he  had  all  strings  saved  and  turned  the 
task  of  splicing  them  over  to  young  Henry,  with 
the  result  that  his  enthusiasm  rapidly  evaporated. 

Although  bashful  as  a  youth,  Clay  is  said  to  have 
been  a  favorite  with  the  girls.  While  clerking  in 
Richmond,  he  went  to  a  party  of  young  people  where 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  reserve  and  stiffness  until 
some  one  discovered  that  in  a  corner  where  Clay 
was  the  boys  were  having  a  good  time.  Then  the 
girls  interfered,  the  bashful  Henry  was  pulled  out 
of  a  corner,  and  he  was  compelled  to  take  the  lead. 
Kissing  games  were  the  common  recreation  of  the 
time,  and  Copenhagen  was  proposed  by  Henry  as  a 
means  of  breaking  up  the  gloom  which  had  settled 
over  the  crowd.  After  this  there  was  mirth  enough, 
and  although  Henry  was  freckled  and  poorly  clad, 
it  is  said  that  in  the  various  games  which  followed 
he  was  chosen  by  the  lassies  to  be  kissed  more  often 
than  any  other  boy  in  the  place.  That  portion  of 
the  story  which  goes  on  to  say  that  the  youthful 
John  C.  Calhoun,  of  South  Carolina,  was  a  guest, 
and  that  he  was  embittered  over  Clay's  popularity, 
is  evidently  manufactured,  but  it  is  an  instance  of 
the  sort  of  story  that  gained  currency  more  than 
sixty  years  ago. 

Finally,  Clay  was  taken  from  behind  the  counter 
by  his  step-father,  who  realized  that  he  had  larger 
capacities  than  he  had  at  first  thought.  He  got 
him  a  small  clerkship  in  the  High  Court  of  Chancery, 
where  he  had  little  to  do  and  no  salary,  but  a  chance 

23 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

to  learn.  Here  he  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
famous  Chancellor  George  Wythe,  who  made  him 
his  amanuensis  in  the  office  where  Jefferson  and 
Marshall  had  studied.  Here  he  picked  up  a  good 
deal  of  useful  education,  if  he  did  not  actually 
fit  himself  for  the  law.  After  four  years'  service 
with  Chancellor  Wythe,  Henry  commenced  the 
study  of  law  on  his  own  account  with  Attorney- 
General  Brooke,  and  in  one  year  was  licensed  to 
practise.  Richmond  was  no  place  for  a  young 
lawyer,  and  so  Henry  went  to  Lexington,  Kentucky, 
in  1 797,  near  which  his  mother  and  step-father  had 
lived  for  five  years.  It  was  the  most  thriving  city 
in  the  West. 

At  twenty,  Clay  was  tall,  slender,  white-headed, 
and  hopeful.  He  had  already  achieved  some  noto 
riety  as  a  debater,  but  his  voice  was  not  under  good 
control.  He  is  said  to  have  been  a  model  young 
man  for  that  period,  when  standards  were  not  the 
same  as  now.  He  drank  some,  gambled  a  good 
deal,  and  was  quick  in  choler,  ready  to  draw  his 
blade.  These,  however,  so  far  from  being  con 
sidered  vices,  were  looked  upon  as  the  marks  of  a 
gentleman. 

We  can  well  imagine  that  under  any  circumstances 
Clay  would  have  made  his  mark.  It  is  possible  that 
it  would  have  been  a  more  shining  one  elsewhere, 
but  it  never  could  have  been  the  same  as  it  was  in 
Kentucky.  He  arrived  at  the  precise  time  when 
the  young  Commonwealth  was  growing  rapidly, 
needed  vigorous  blood,  and  was  willing  to  appre 
ciate  it.  And,  at  the  risk  of  a  seeming  diversion, 
some  attention  must  be  paid  to  the  Kentucky  of  that 
day,  or  else  the  career  of  Clay  will  never  be  under 
stood.  Psychologically  and  politically  he  was  as  much 
a  development  of  Kentucky  soil  as  were  physically 
her  fat  cattle  and  race-horses. 

24 


YOUTH 

Permanent  settlement  had  been  made  in  Kentucky 
only  twenty- three  years  when  Henry  Clay  moved  to 
Lexington,  and  she  had  been  a  Commonwealth  but 
five.  Her  career  had  been  singular.  When  Daniel 
Boone  and  others  pierced  the  Alleghenies  they 
found  what  is  now  Kentucky  uninhabited  by  Indians, 
though  roving  bands  often  hunted  and  fought  there. 
The  central  portion  contains  the  richest  soil  to  be 
found  in  all  of  North  America.  Its  mineral  resources 
were  great,  but  these  were  of  less  attraction  to  the 
Virginian  than  the  cultivable  area. 

By  this  time  Virginia  had  been  largely  absorbed 
by  great  plantations  where  slaves  exhausted  the  soil 
in  producing  tobacco.  The  rush  to  the  new  country 
was  stopped  by  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  but  after 
that  period  thousands  of  the  veterans  hurried  to  the 
Western  lands.  Virginians  were  almost  exclusively 
of  British  stock  and  agricultural  in  their  pursuits. 
They  came,  as  a  rule,  from  the  counties  where  learn 
ing  was  little  esteemed,  but  hunting,  horse-racing, 
and  carousing  were  much  in  vogue.  Largely  of 
cavalier  extraction,  they  had  two  notable  qualities, 
— an  outward  respect  for  religion  and  a  decided 
adherence  to  the  letter  of  the  written  law.  The 
latter  was  a  notable  feature,  in  spite  of  the  reckless 
and  daring  independence  of  the  individual.  There 
soon  came  a  strong  admixture  of  Scotch-Irish  by 
way  of  Pennsylvania,  which  was  of  great  import 
ance  to  the  State.  After  the  better  lands  were 
taken  up,  Scotch  and  English  settled  in  the  eastern 
or  mountainous  region,  where  the  race  remains  in  a 
state  of  arrested  development  until  this  day.  The 
Kentucky  feuds  are  nothing  but  the  internecine  wars 
of  the  Highland  clans  transferred  from  Scotland  to 
the  Cumberland  Mountains. 

The  central  portion  of  Kentucky,  known  as  the 
Blue  Grass  district,  where  Clay  made  his  home,  has 

25 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

achieved  a  world-wide  reputation.  The  soil  is  only 
about  two  feet  deep,  and  overlies  the  crumbling 
measures  of  the  Lower  Silurian  strata.  Through 
these  soft  limestones  the  water  percolates  and  con 
stantly  refreshes  the  soil.  There  are  fields  in  this 
district  where  the  same  crop  has  been  raised  for  one 
hundred  years  without  the  use  of  artificial  fertilizers 
and  apparently  as  rich  as  ever.  Beginning  in  1783, 
the  Virginians  rushed  to  Kentucky, — old  soldiers, 
impoverished  planters,  adventurers,  and  cadets  of  the 
old  families.  The  early  settlers  had  struggles  with 
the  Indians,  but  Wayne's  victory  at  Fallen  Timbers, 
in  which  Kentuckians  took  a  leading  part,  brought 
the  aborigines  to  terms.  In  1/90  there  were 
73,677  people  in  Kentucky,  including  12,430  slaves 
and  114  free  blacks.  In  1800  there  were  221,955, 
including  40, 343  slaves  and  737  free  blacks.  This  was 
an  extraordinary  development  for  those  times.  As 
early  as  1784  the  Kentuckians  moved  for  separate 
political  government,  but,  owing  to  mild  conditions 
imposed  by  Virginia  and  some  extraordinary  local 
situations,  this  was  not  effected  until  1792.  In  the 
mean  time  Wilkinson  had  been  coquetting  with  Spain, 
and  Kentucky,  then  as  far  removed  in  time  from 
Richmond  as  is  the  Seward  Peninsula  of  Alaska  to 
day  from  Washington,  was  thinking  more  of  the  lower 
Mississippi  trade  than  of  the  East.  There  were 
some  who  wanted  to  declare  independence  and  a  few 
who  dreamed  of  a  connection  with  Spain,  which 
controlled  the  mouth  of  the  river.  This  disappeared 
in  time,  but  soon  after  her  admission  Kentucky 
passed  the  celebrated  resolutions  of  1798,  which 
showed  how  lightly  she  construed  the  Federal 
bond, — at  least  on  paper.  At  the  same  time  it 
showed  her  audacious  spirit,  being  the  baby  of  the 
Union  instructing  the  entire  family. 

Of  the  Kentuckians  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
26 


YOUTH 

century,  Professor  N.  S.  Shaler,  in  his  history  of  the 
State,  has  written, — 

"  Twenty  years  of  such  life  developed  a  particular  sort  of 
man.  They  had  a  very  peculiar  quality  of  mind.  Its  most 
characteristic  feature  was  a  certain  dauntlessness,  a  habit  of 
asserting  the  independence  of  all  control  except  that  of  the 
written  law.  Their  speech  was  rude  and  often  exaggerated. 
As  a  class,  they  were  much  like  the  men  of  to-day  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  except  that  they  had  not  the  eager  desire  for  gain 
that  takes  away  from  the  charm  of  that  people.  This  advan 
tage  made  the  frontiersman  of  Kentucky  a  much  more  agree 
able  fellow  than  his  money-seeking  modern  kinsman  from  the 
far  West.  First  we  may  notice  their  envious  respect  for  the 
written  law.  Courts  of  Justice  were  at  the  outset  established 
in  Kentucky  and  the  life  was  at  once  adjusted  to  the  usages 
of  the  civil  law. ' ' 

An  impetuous  race  with  a  tendency  to  break  the 
law  and  yet  to  respect  its  mandates  was  good  soil  for 
a  lawyer.  Moreover,  from  the  first  the  land  laws  of 
Kentucky  were  inadequate,  and  titles  became  involved 
in  almost  inextricable  confusion.  In  the  haste  to 
settle,  few  adequate  surveys  were  made,  and  claims 
overlapped  one  another  in  lavish  profusion,  giving  rise 
to  endless  and  expensive  litigation. 

The  opportunities  for  a  young  lawyer  of  abilities 
in  this  growing  section  were  better  than  in  any  other 
part  of  the  country,  and  from  the  start  Clay  made 
his  mark.  In  a  chapter  dealing  with  his  career  as  a 
lawyer  this  subject  will  be  more  fully  examined.  For 
the  present  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he  started  in  to 
work  at  twenty  years  of  age  with  enthusiasm  and  the 
noble  ambition  of  securing  a  practice  worth  four 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  Finding  his  voice  defective, 
he  spent  days  arguing  to  pigs  and  cows  until  he 
modulated  it  into  those  silvery,  siren  tones  which 
seduced  all  hearers.  In  later  years  Clay  was  wont  to 
say  that  the  brutes  of  the  farm  were  the  best  audiences 
he  ever  had.  At  least  they  never  applauded  him  and 

27 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

then  voted  for  his  rival.  But  Clay  had  something 
better  than  a  good  voice, — a  magnetism  of  speech  and 
manner  when  warmed  by  a  favorite  subject  As  a 
Virginia  boy  his  mind  had  been  inflamed  with  the 
stories  of  Daniel  Boone  in  Kentucky.  When  he 
came  to  reside  there  he  was  called  upon  to  make  a 
speech  before  some  of  the  mountaineers  in  the  country 
south  of  Lexington,  where  he  had  been  sent  to  collect 
a  bill  which  was  resisted.  In  that  region  the  black 
smith-shops  were  the  centres  of  public  gatherings,  and 
here,  most  unfortunately,  he  had  failed  to  secure  from 
one  of  the  vicinage  payment  of  the  money  he  had 
been  sent  to  collect.  A  campaign  was  in  progress, 
and  Clay  was  asked  to  speak.  It  so  happened  that 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  merits  of  the  contest,  which 
was  purely  local,  and  he  could  not  find  out  on  which 
side  stood  the  man  from  whom  he  had  unavailingly 
tried  to  get  the  money.  In  this  dilemma  he  bethought 
himself  of  Daniel  Boone,  who  was  the  patron  saint 
of  the  neighborhood,  and  in  an  hour's  impassioned 
speech  from  an  anvil  told  of  his  early  sufferings, 
sacrifices,  and  battles  with  the  Indians,  drawing  largely 
on  his  imagination  for  the  facts  which  he  never  knew 
or  had  forgotten.  As  a  result,  he  was  received  with 
tumultuous  applause  by  friends  of  both  claimants  for 
office,  who  thought  he  was  on  their  side,  and  in  the 
end  got  the  money  he  was  sent  to  collect. 

Much  of  his  work  consisted  of  the  copying  of 
documents.  Among  these  were  many  British  opinions. 
Recollection  of  these  proved  useful  to  him  later. 
He  is  said  in  the  early  years  to  have  been  called  upon 
to  defend  before  a  Kentucky  magistrate  of  little 
learning  a  man  charged  with  the  larceny  of  a  hog. 
The  evidence  was  dead  against  his  client,  and  Clay 
proceeded  to  befog  the  local  Dogberry  as  best  he 
could  by  means  of  his  eloquence.  He  quoted  at 
great  length  a  decision  of  an  English  chancellor  in  a 

28 


YOUTH 

case  dealing  with  a  contested  will,  and  insisted  so 
fervently  on  its  application  to  the  case  in  hand  that 
his  client  was  released. 

When  copying  manuscripts  for  Chancellor  Wythe 
he  was  occasionally  given  extracts  in  Greek  to  repro 
duce.  This  was  a  difficult  task,  as  he  had  never  studied 
the  language  ;  but  he  kept  at  it  until  he  received 
much  praise.  In  after-years  it  is  related  that,  being 
at  a  loss  in  an  English  drawing-room  for  a  subject  of 
conversation,  he  ventured  something  about  the  Greeks 
who  were  then  struggling  for  their  liberties.  Discov 
ering  that  none  of  those  present  was  familiar  with 
the  Hellenic  classics,  he  ventured  to  quote  as  a  saying 
of  Homer  a  few  phrases  which  he  had  copied  in 
youth  and  still  remembered.  This  gave  him  a 
reputation  for  erudition  that  produced  an  offer  of  an 
introduction  to  Lord  Byron,  which,  fortunately,  never 
came  to  anything. 

An  incident  of  his  first  year  in  Kentucky  is  sug 
gestive.  In  a  debating  society  to  which  Clay  be 
longed,  the  discussion  being  apparently  ended,  the 
chairman  was  about  to  put  the  question,  according  to 
custom,  to  decide  which  side  of  the  proposition  had 
been  best  maintained.  Clay  remarked  in  a  whisper 
to  a  friend  that  the  subject  did  not  seem  to  have 
been  exhausted,  and  was  promptly  called  upon  to 
speak.  He  replied  in  a  hesitating,  halting  voice  for 
a  time,  in  which  he  constantly  invoked  the  "gentle 
men  of  the  jury,"  and  frequent  smiles  resulted. 
Then,  gathering  courage,  he  launched  forth  into  an 
eloquent  extemporaneous  speech  which  carried  his 
hearers  away  with  enthusiasm.  It  was  not  the  matter 
so  much  as  the  manner  that  captured  his  audience, 
and  this  was  destined  to  be  true  of  most  of  his 
speeches  through  life.  They  never  smelled  of  the 
lamp,  but  were  spontaneous  outpourings  of  an  im 
passioned,  sentimental,  imaginative  soul.  Indeed, 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

emotion  was  the  very  core  of  his  being.  Many  of 
his  convictions  could  be  traced  to  some  nervous 
impression. 

His  hatred  of  slavery  as  an  institution  is  said  to 
have  originated  in  an  experience  when  he  lived  in 
The  Slashes.  A  negro  who  had  run  away  from 
some  distance  had  made  his  home  in  the  swamps 
near  by,  and  was  a  great  favorite  with  all  the  boys  in 
the  neighborhood  because  he  knew  where  the  best 
fish  were  to  be  found,  the  first  berries,  and  the  finest 
"  fox-grapes."  News  of  his  location  coming  to  his 
master,  a  constable  was  sent  to  bring  him  back. 
The  negro  gave  battle,  in  which  he  was  accidentally 
killed.  Clay  never  forgot  this.  He  never  forgot 
that  the  love  of  liberty  is  inherent  in  human  nature, 
regardless  of  the  color  of  the  skin,  though  he  was 
often  doubtful  as  to  what  should  be  done  with  the 
institution. 

In  the  month  he  became  twenty-two  years  of  age 
his  worldly  prosperity  was  such  that  he  was  married 
to  Lucretia  Hart,  who  became  the  mother  of  eleven 
children,  and  with  whom  he  lived  in  happiness  over 
fifty  years.  She  was  of  good  family,  well  educated 
for  her  times,  and  a  constant  help-meet  to  her  hus 
band  during  his  whole  career.  She  cared  little  for 
politics,  but  sympathized  in  her  husband's  ambitions. 
By  her  many  descendants  she  is  all  but  worshipped. 
In  a  few  years  he  bought  the  beautiful  estate,  just 
outside  of  Lexington,  which  from  the  native  trees 
he  called  Ashland,  and  when  the  fever  of  ambition 
was  not  in  his  blood  he  loved  to  be  there,  and  his 
interest  in  its  development  and  improvement  was 
perhaps  the  best  passion  of  his  life. 

He  was  not  destined  to  see  much  of  it.  From  his 
twenty-fifth  to  his  seventy-sixth  year  most  of  his 
time  was  spent  in  the  public  service,  and,  but  for  his 
friends,  Ashland  would  have  passed  into  the  hands 

30 


YOUTH 

of  strangers.  Money  and  political  success  up  to  a 
certain  point  came  so  easily  to  him  that  he  could 
not  believe  they  had  any  limitations,  yet  much  of 
his  life  he  was  harassed  with  debt  contracted  for 
others,  while  his  ambition  received  numerous  rude 
checks. 

Clay  was  fond  of  the  country,  and  in  after-years 
used  to  refer  to  his  ploughing,  in  which  he  con 
sidered  himself  an  adept.  Like  every  country  boy, 
he  was  fond  of  swimming,  and  was  accustomed  to 
bathe  frequently  in  a  stream  which  bordered  the 
farm.  He  had  often  told  his  children  of  his  prowess 
in  swimming  several  times  across  that  stream,  as  if  it 
were  a  remarkable  feat.  He  never  visited  his  old 
home  after  boyhood  until  he  had  become  a  national 
statesman.  The  thing  that  impressed  him  most  was 
to  see  how  the  stream  had  shrunk  from  the  very 
considerable  river  of  his  imagination  to  an  insignifi 
cant  little  creek.  This  affected  him  considerably, 
and  he  was  often  wont  to  refer  to  it  as  showing  the 
futility  of  trusting  to  memory. 

Eleven  children  were  born  to  them,  most  of  whom 
reached  maturity. 

Henrietta,  the  oldest  child,  died  in  infancy. 

Theodore  Wythe,  the  oldest  son,  was  injured  in 
youth  and  was  insane  the  rest  of  his  life,  dying  at 
an  advanced  age  in  an  asylum. 

Thomas  Hart  became  a  farmer.  He  had  five 
children,  and  many  of  his  descendants  are  living, 
married  into  the  best  families  of  Kentucky. 

Susan  Hart  died  in  early  married  life,  leaving  two 
sons,  who  died  unmarried. 

Ann  Brown,  who  married  a  Mr.  Erwin,  was  the 
favorite  daughter  and  perhaps  the  favorite  child  of 
the  statesman.  "She  was  my  comfort,"  he  used  to 
say,  and  when  she  died,  in  early  married  life,  the  blow 
almost  killed  him. 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Lucretia  Hart  died  early. 

Henry  Clay,  Jr.,  the  most  promising  of  the  sons 
in  the  line  of  public  life,  graduated  from  West  Point, 
but  settled  down  to  the  study  of  the  law.  He  was 
lieutenant-colonel  of  the  Second  Kentucky  Volun 
teers  in  the  Mexican  War,  and  was  killed  at  Buena 
Vista  while  leading  his  troops. 

Eliza  died  at  the  age  of  twelve,  while  the  family 
was  on  the  way  to  Washington.  She  was  buried  in 
Ohio,  and  only  recently  the  body  was  removed  to 
the  family  lot  in  Lexington. 

Laura  died  in  infancy. 

James  B.  became  a  planter  and  lawyer,  served  in 
Congress,  and  after  going  South  at  the  opening  of 
the  war,  died  in  Canada.  His  widow  survives. 

John  M.  took  charge  of  the  horse-breeding  at 
Ashland  and  was  left  part  of  the  estate,  on  which 
his  widow  still  resides. 

It  will  be  noted  that  all  of  Clay's  daughters  died 
comparatively  young  and  only  three  sons  survived 
the  father.  There  are,  however,  many  descendants 
of  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  generations  still  living, 
though  a  number  were  killed  on  both  sides  in  the 
Ciifc' War. 

Although  Clay  had  no  confidence  in  the  family 
tree  erected  by  his  relative,  General  Cassius  M.  Clay, 
it  may  be  worth  while  mentioning  that  the  claim 
was  made  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  sent  over  to 
Jamestown  three  sons  of  Sir  John  Clay,  a  Welsh 
man,  who  gave  each  of  the  boys  ten  thousand 
pounds.  From  one  of  these  (Charles)  Cassius  claimed 
to  be  descended ;  from  Thomas,  Henry  the  states 
man  descended ;  while  the  third  brother,  Henry,  does 
not  appear  to  have  left  any  descendants.  Unfor 
tunately,  this  story  is  more  or  less  apocryphal,  and 
the  member  of  the  family  who  has,  perhaps,  studied 
the  subject  closer  than  any  other  considers  it  a 

32 


MRS.    HENRY    CLAY 

(From  a  portrait  painted  by  Oliver  Frazer  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Henry 
C.  McDowell,  a  granddaughter  of  Mrs.  Clay.  The  portrait  was  an  unfinished 
one,  and  discovered  after  the  death  of  the  painter.  It  is  believed  to  have  been 
painted  about  1851,  in  which  year  Mr.  Frazer  also  painted  a  portrait  of  Mr.  Clay. 
The  delicacy  of  outline  of  the  face  and  the  sensitiveness  of  the  lips  and  eyes 
would  indicate  that  Mrs.  Clay  was  at  this  time  a  woman  of  considerable  charm 
of  appearance.  Copyright,  1897,  by  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company.  By  courtesy 
of  "  McClure's  Magazine.") 


YOUTH 

doubtful  one,  as  resting  on  tradition  and    not    on 
documentary  evidence. 

During  much  of  Clay's  mature  years  he  was 
absent  from  home  either  in  the  practice  of  the  law 
or  on  public  business.  Mrs.  Clay  seldom  went  to 
Washington.  She  had  no  taste  for  public  life  and 
the  farm  made  great  demands  on  her  time.  She 
was  very  close  to  Solomon's  description  of  the  virtu 
ous  woman.  The  estate  was  large  and  the  slaves 
numerous.  She  superintended  every  operation. 
She  arose  first  in  the  morning  and  was  the  last  to 
retire.  Her  dairy  supplied  the  famous  Phoenix 
Hotel  at  Lexington,  and  she  personally  inspected 
every  shipment  of  milk,  eggs,  poultry,  and  vegeta 
bles.  She  made  the  farm  pay  when  her  husband 
did  not  use  up  all  the  surplus  in  entertaining.  On 
leaving  for  Washington,  he  always  gave  her  a  gener 
ous  check  for  expenses,  which  she  as  regularly  gave 
back  to  him  on  his  return.  She  was  said  to  be  the 
best  farmer  in  Fayette  County ;  he  the  next  best. 
Henry  Clay  had  all  the  Virginian's  love  of  rural  life. 
He  liked  blooded  stock,  and  spent  large  sums  on  his 
herds  and  flocks,  which  were  remunerative.  Easy 
come  and  easy  go  was  Clay's  motto.  When  he 
ran  in  debt,  he  could  get  clients  easily  enough  to 
reach  good  financial  circumstances. 

As  they  grew  older,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clay  seemed  to 
increase  in  affection  towards  each  other.  Could  the 
demon  of  ambition  have  kept  away,  the  last  half  of 
Clay's  life  would  have  been  one  of  singular  success 
and  happiness.  When  at  Ashland  he  seemed  to  for 
get  the  turmoil  of  politics  and  to  revel  in  the  bucolic 
life,  but  never  for  long  at  a  time.  His  wife  survived 
him  for  over  a  dozen  years,  and  now  lies  by  his 
side  in  a  marble  sarcophagus  in  the  crypt  of  the 
Lexington  monument  erected  by  the  State  that  knew 
and  loved  him  so  well. 

3  33 


Ill 

CLAY   AS    A    LAWYER 

AT  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  practice 
of  the  law  was  a  less  complex  occupation  than  at 
present.  The  corpus  of  corporation  law  had  not 
then  arisen  ;  statute  law  was  less  important  than  the 
common  law,  which  was  borrowed  from  England. 
Nevertheless,  it  was  a  profession  calling  for  the  deep 
est  study  and  the  highest  talents,  and  the  difference 
between  the  pettifogger  and  the  man  at  the  head  of 
the  profession  was  as  great  then  as  now.  Clay  had 
been  well  trained  under  Wythe,  Brooke,  and  other 
leading  lawyers  of  Virginia,  but  his  natural  equipment 
exceeded  his  learning.  He  came  at  a  fortunate 
time  with  letters  from  the  best  men  of  Richmond  to 
the  best  in  Lexington,  where  the  bar,  even  in  that 
early  day,  was  noted  for  its  ability.  He  seems  to 
have  owed  much  to  the  patronage  of  John  Breckin- 
ridge,  progenitor  of  a  numerous  and  distinguished 
posterity. 

Breckinridge  received  the  young  man  cordially, 
and  when  he  soon  retired  from  the  bar  to  enter 
politics,  Clay  succeeded  to  much  of  his  practice. 
Nicholas,  another  leader  of  the  bar,  soon  retired,  as 
did  one  or  two  others,  so  that  the  young  man  leaped 
into  a  good  practice  after  a  single  year,  which  he  de 
voted  to  further  study.  He  was  an  ardent  Jefiferso- 
nian  who  could  make  a  good  speech  on  any  occasion 
at  a  time  when  the  Kentuckians  were  as  anxious  as 
ever  were  the  Athenians  to  hear  a  good  orator.  In 
his  earlier  years  most  of  his  practice  was  in  criminal 
cases  before  juries,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  he  had 

34 


CLAY   AS   A   LAWYER 

a  wonderful  power  of  persuasion.  The  writer  has 
looked  through  the  files  of  the  courts  at  Lexington 
for  many  years,  and  finds  that  Clay  had  an  enor 
mous  proportion  of  the  practice,  both  civil  and 
criminal.  As  was  the  custom,  he  went  .on  circuit, 
where  he  was  equally  popular  and  successful.  A 
specimen  of  one  of  his  law  papers  about  this  time  is 
reproduced  in  this  volume,  which  shows  that  he  wrote 
a  beautiful  hand,  and  the  papers  are  as  easily  read 
to-day  as  when  written.  Most  documents  of  that  day 
are  written  in  a  heavy  hand,  but  Clay  preferred  a 
light  quill,  and  in  later  years  raised  geese  and  had 
his  pens  manufactured  under  his  own  eye. 

After  he  had  acquired  a  very  considerable  reputa 
tion,  he  had  an  experience  that  he  never  forgot,  and 
it  is  spoken  of  to-day  in  Lexington  by  those  who 
had  it  from  his  own  lips.  Going  on  circuit  in  com 
pany  with  other  lawyers,  he  approached  the  neigh 
boring  county-seat  of  Mount  Sterling,  where,  at  a 
creek  crossing,  as  was  customary,  all  litigants  met 
the  cavalcade  to  select  attorneys  and  get  instructions. 
On  this  occasion  Clay  was  singled  out  by  the  richest 
and  most  prominent  citizen  of  the  town,  who,  with 
great  show  of  indignation,  informed  Clay  that  he  had 
been  accused  of  stealing  a  bee-gum  by  his  next-door 
neighbor,  and  wanted  Clay  to  defend  him  in  what 
was  no  less  than  an  atrocious  assault  on  his  character. 

Clay  asked  for  the  witnesses  who  usually  assem 
bled  on  such  occasions,  and,  there  being  none  present, 
he  was  sent  post-haste  by  the  lawyer  to  get  them 
and  repair  to  the  court-house.  (It  should  be  noted 
that  a  bee-gum  is  the  colloquial  name  of  bee-hive,  due 
to  the  fact  that  sections  of  the  hollow  gum-tree  were 
commonly  used  for  the  purpose.  Kentuckians  then, 
as  ever  since,  were  proverbially  fond  of  honey,  and 
a  theft  of  the  sort  was  an  invasion  of  the  most  sacred 
rights  of  personal  property.)  When  the  case  was 

35 


THE  TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

called,  Clay  was  embarrassed  to  find  that  his  client  had 
collected  no  witnesses,  some  excuse  being  given.  A 
strong  case  was  made  out  against  the  man  by  witnesses 
for  the  prosecution,  nor  could  cross-questioning 
shake  their  testimony.  Clay's  anger  was  rising,  for 
he  detested  not  only  losing  a  case,  but  being  imposed 
upon.  He  had  to  rely  on  his  skill  with  the  jury,  and 
he  launched  forth  into  an  eloquent  plea  in  which  the 
character  and  reputation  of  the  man  were  held  up  in 
glowing  colors  and  the  absurdity  shown  that  he  should 
steal  a  bee-gum.  All  in  vain.  The  silver  tongue 
could  not  move  the  twelve  men  good  and  true,  and 
when  they  retired,  Clay  was  in  a  state  of  anger  which 
reached  blood-heat  when  the  jury  returned  in  five  min 
utes  with  a  verdict  of  guilty.  He  rose  from  his  chair 
and  stalked  out  of  the  room  to  give  vent  to  his  feel 
ings.  Just  as  he  was  passing  out  of  the  door  his 
client  seized  him  by  the  coat-tails  and  said,  in  great 
agitation, — 

"  Mr.  Clay  !  Mr.  Clay  !  we've  lost  our  case  !" 

Clay  turned  around  and,  in  a  voice  of  indignation 
which  thundered  all  over  the  room,  announced, — 

"Yes,   Mr.  B ,  we've  lost  our  case,  but,  by 

God,  we've  got  our  bee-gum  !" 

Another  instance  had  a  happier  result.  In  those 
days,  as  now,  lawyers  were  not  above  finding  out  all 
that  was  possible  about  the  jury  in  advance,  so  as  to 
work  on  them  in  turn.  In  an  important  case  which 
he  was  trying,  Clay  found  he  had  succeeded  in  winning 
over  eleven  men  of  the  jury,  but  the  twelfth  was  obdu 
rate.  Every  one  of  his  arts  was  tried  in  vain  upon  the 
twelfth  man,  a  sturdy  old  farmer  who  had  evidently 
made  up  his  mind  and  was  not  to  be  moved. 
Finally  he  began  an  impassioned  passage,  and  in 
the  very  midst  of  his  eloquence  suddenly  stopped 
and,  pointing  his  graceful  finger  at  the  obdurate 
juryman,  said, — 

36 


CLAY   AS   A    LAWYER 

"  Mr.  X ,  a  pinch  of  snuff,  if  you  please." 

The  old  man  was  overcome  with  the  attention 
paid  him  by  the  distinguished  lawyer,  and  finally 
managed  to  blurt  out, — 

"  I  don't  snuff,  Mr.  Clay,  but  I  chaws." 

The  twelve  men  were  unanimous  in  their  verdict. 

The  last  great  criminal  case  in  which  Clay  figured 
was  the  Shelby  murder  case  in  1848,  when  he  was 
past  seventy  years  old.  It  was  an  affair  which 
stirred  all  Kentucky  because  the  accused  was  a 
grandson  of  Governor  Isaac  Shelby,  who  had  been  a 
friend  and  patron  of  Clay.  Young  Shelby  had  been 
drinking  hard  and  was  dining  at  the  famous  Phoenix 
Hotel.  Opposite  him  sat  a  friend  named  Horine. 
In  a  drunken  frenzy,  Shelby  followed  his  friend  out 
of  the  room  and  said, — 

"What  did  you  look  at  me  for?" 

"  I  might  as  well  look  at  you  as  any  one  else,"  said 
Horine,  whereupon  Shelby  shot  him  dead. 

Nothing  but  the  prominence  of  the  family  of 
Shelby  saved  him  from  immediate  conviction,  but 
the  services  of  Clay  were  invoked  to  save  the  life 
of  so  unworthy  a  descendant  of  such  an  illustrious 
ancestor.  There  are  still  old  men  living  in  Lex 
ington  who  heard  that  case  tried.  The  evidence 
was  perfectly  plain  and  was  quickly  over,  almost 
no  defence  being  offered.  It  was  Clay's  last  address 
to  a  jury  in  a  murder  trial,  probably  his  last  to 
any  jury,  and  he  girded  his  loins  for  the  task. 
Witnesses  say  that  it  was  worth  as  much  to  see  the 
grand  old  man  as  to  hear  him.  He  never  lost 
his  dignity,  but  the  fire  of  youth  was  upon  him,  and 
his  tall  form  swayed  back  and  forth  and  he  thrilled 
with  emotion  as  he  offered  such  defence  as  he  could 
for  the  atrocious  deed.  His  silver  voice  never 
sounded  sweeter,  and  every  one  of  the  audience 
was  in  tears.  When  he  became  excited  there  was 

37 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

a  gleam  of  fire  in  his  eyes  which  one  man  said  re 
minded  him  of  a  catamount  in  a  cave.  The  speech 
was  more  of  a  defence  of  the  Shelby  family  and  a 
laudation  of  its  services  to  the  State  than  an  apology 
for  the  crime,  but  it  succeeded.  The  jury  disagreed ; 
the  young  man  was  admitted  to  bail  and  fled  to 
Texas. 

It  was  in  this  same  court-house  that,  years  before, 
an  exciting  incident  took  place.  A  turnkey  was 
murdered  by  an  inmate  of  the  jail.  A  mob  arose, 
took  the  murderer  out,  and  was  proceeding  to  hang 
him  from  a  tree,  when  some  one  suggested  that  a 
more  appropriate  gallows  would  be  the  windows  of 
the  court-house.  Accordingly  he  was  taken  up  and 
swung  out  of  a  window  of  the  court-room  in  the 
second  story,  "to  make  it  more  legal,"  as  one  of 
the  leaders  remarked. 

That  Clay  was  a  great  lawyer  has  been  denied 
by  those  who  think  he  never  could  have  mastered 
the  law,  seeing  that  he  spent  relatively  so  little  time 
in  practise.  That  opinion  is  not  held  by  those  who 
have  studied  this  feature  of  his  career.  He  was  a 
constitutional  as  well  as  a  nisi  prius  lawyer,  and 
argued  many  great  cases  in  the  Supreme  and  lesser 
courts.  The  so-called  "Occupier  Case,"  involving 
the  relative  rights  of  two  independent  States,  in  a  con 
troversy  between  Kentucky  and  Virginia,  was  argued 
by  him  in  the  Supreme  Court ;  and,  though  he  lost  his 
case,  the  dissenting  opinion  closely  followed  his 
pleadings,  and  is  now,  perhaps,  more  esteemed  than 
the  decision  itself. 

In  the  banking  controversy  which  so  greatly  con 
vulsed  the  State  of  Kentucky  he  was  counsel  in 
many  cases,  and  was  for  some  years  counsel  of  the 
National  Bank,  in  which  capacity  he  conducted  some 
very  intricate  cases  with  success.  There  never  was 
a  time  when  he  lacked  clients,  and  if  he  had  been 

38 


ORIGINAL   COURT-HOUSE,  LEXINGTON,   KENTUCKY 

(Here  Henry  Clay  made  his  first  reputation  as  a  lawyer.     From  the  second- 
story  window  a  lynching  took  place.) 


CLAY   AS   A    LAWYER 

willing  to  confine  himself  to  the  law,  he  would  have 
become  one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  the  West,  cer 
tainly  one  of  the  wealthiest  lawyers  in  the  country. 
In  1845  it  was  estimated  that  he  should  have  been  a 
millionaire  if  he  had  let  politics  alone,  though  perhaps 
there  was  not  then  a  man  west  of  the  Alleghenies  so 
rated.  After  1810  very  little  of  his  time  was  given 
to  practice.  He  lived  freely,  frequently  signed  notes 
for  friends,  which  he  often  had  to  pay,  and  occasion 
ally,  for  this  reason  only,  was  in  debt.  At  such  times 
all  he  had  to  do  was  to  let  it  be  known  that  he  was 
open  for  clients  and  they  flocked  to  him.  In  the 
last  Monroe  administration  he  left  Congress  to  recover 
his  fortune,  and  easily  did  so  in  a  couple  of  years 
at  the  bar.  He  did  not,  however,  love  money  for 
its  own  sake,  or  he  would  have  been  wealthy,  even 
with  the  attention  he  paid  to  politics.  A  very  large 
part  of  his  practice  was  gratis,  and  his  fees  were 
moderate,  even  for  those  days. 

After  his  retirement  from  the  Senate  in  1842  he 
did  not  practise  a  great  deal.  His  debts,  incurred  in 
an  unfortunate  enterprise  elsewhere  mentioned,  were 
paid  by  unknown  friends,  and  he  was  soon  able  to 
regain  his  fortune  so  that  he  could  live  at  Ashland 
in  peace,  only  appearing  at  the  bar  in  great  cases  or 
arguing  in  the  Supreme  Courts  of  the  States  or  of 
the  United  States.  A  case  has  been  mentioned 
which  was  probably  the  last.  Not  long  before  this 
he  was  induced  to  appear  in  defence  of  his  kinsman 
and  neighbor,  General  Cassius  M.  Clay,  who  lived  for 
nearly  sixty  years  after  the  event  now  narrated.  At 
a  barbecue  at  Russell's  Cave  a  visitor  by  the  name 
of  Sam  Brown  was  looking  for  trouble  and  soon 
found  it  He  brutally  insulted  General  Clay,  who 
resented  it  and  was  promptly  shot  at,  but  the  bullet 
struck  a  dirk  which  General  Clay  carried.  Clay 
pulled  the  knife  and,  closing  in  on  Brown,  carved 

39 


THE   TRUE   HENRY    CLAY 

him  to  pieces  in  the  fashion  of  the  day,  though  he 
miraculously  escaped  death,  for  Cassius  was  "a  bad 
man  with  the  knife."  In  the  trial  that  followed  the 
prosecutor,  who  was  a  young  man,  naturally  felt 
abashed  at  meeting  such  a  distinguished  opponent  as 
Senator  Clay,  who  defended  Cassius.  It  was  a  nota 
ble  trial,  for  the  prosecutor  wanted  to  win  his  spurs. 
After  a  speech  which  was  in  his  best  vein,  Henry 
closed  with  the  statement,  "  If  Cassius  Clay  had  not 
done  as  he  did,  I  would  not  own  him  for  a  kinsman." 

Cassius  was  acquitted ;  but  fate  was  against  Brown, 
who  was  soon  afterwards  killed  in  a  steamboat 
explosion. 

So  far  as  can  be  learned  from  the  records  and  uni 
form  tradition,  no  man  was  ever  hanged  whom  Henry 
Clay  defended,  and  his  reputation  as  such  was  so 
great  that  it  is  probable  that  the  fact  that  Clay  could 
be  secured  for  the  defence  was  a  moving  factor  in 
preventing  men  from  restraining  their  hatred.  Clay 
seems  to  have  felt  the  same,  for  he  is  reported  to 
have  said  of  one  client  whom  he  had  successfully 
defended  that  he  feared  he  had  done  society  a  great 
injustice  in  cheating  the  gallows  of  such  as  he. 
While  acting  for  a  brief  period  as  prosecutor,  he 
secured  the  death  penalty  for  a  negro,  the  only  case 
of  the  sort  he  was  ever  connected  with.  The  Phelps 
case  is  one  that  has  become  famous  because  it  seems 
to  have  been  the  first  in  which  the  plea  of  emotional 
insanity  was  successfully  set  up  as  a  defence.  Mrs. 
Phelps,  who  was  the  wife  of  a  well-to-do  farmer, 
had,  in  a  fit  of  jealousy,  murdered  her  sister-in-law. 
Clay's  defence  was  that  of  "temporary  delirium," 
the  point  being  that  the  woman  had  been  wrought 
up  to  a  state  of  irresponsibility  which  had  been 
relieved  the  moment  her  revenge  had  been  accom 
plished.  The  jury  took  this  view  so  far  as  to  save 
her  life,  but  sent  her  to  jail  for  a  few  months, 

40 


CLAY   AS   A   LAWYER 

which,  as  has  since  been  often  observed,  is  incon 
sistent  with  the  theory  of  Mr.  Clay,  though  the  result 
was  unquestionably  satisfactory  to  him. 

Another  notable  case  was  his  defence  of  an  atro 
cious  murderer  named  Willis.  At  the  first  trial  Clay 
succeeded  in  hanging  the  jury.  On  the  second  trial 
he  set  up  the  defence  that  the  defendant,  having  once 
been  put  in  jeopardy  of  his  life,  could  not,  under 
the  Constitution,  be  tried  again.  The  judge  refused 
to  make  such  a  ruling,  as  it  was  in  violation  of  every 
precedent,  and  Clay  indignantly  threw  down  his 
briefs  and  left  the  room,  declaring  he  could  not  stay 
in  a  court  where  the  rights  of  his  clients  were  not 
protected  constitutionally.  Of  course  this  was  purely 
theatrical,  for  none  knew  better  than  Clay  that  such 
a  position  was  untenable.  But  the  judge  thought 
Clay  really  believed  such  was  the  law,  sent  a  mes 
senger  for  him,  and  induced  him  to  continue  the 
defence.  The  jury  was  more  pliable  in  regard  to 
this  new  interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  and  Clay 
fairly  hypnotized  them  into  thinking  the  man  had 
been  tried  once  and  could  not  now  be  convicted,  so 
a  verdict  of  not  guilty  was  brought  in. 

In  his  early  years  Clay's  greatest  practice  was 
among  clients  who  could  not  pay  a  cent,  and  this  at 
a  time  when  the  paying  portion  was  large.  He  never 
refused  his  services  to  any  one,  and  was  always  ready 
to  defend  free  negroes  and  slaves,  who  were  then 
accorded  jury  trials.  In  this  he  showed  a  courage 
and  a  defiance  of  public  sentiment  which  were  notable 
all  his  life  long ;  but  in  the  end  it  increased  his 
popularity,  for  such  characteristics  never  fail  to  attract 
the  public,  if  they  are  manifested  and  maintained  in 
good  faith.  Much  of  his  practice  dealt  with  land 
titles,  and  in  this  technical  sort  of  litigation  he 
achieved  some  notable  successes  which  added  mate 
rially  to  his  fortune. 

41 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

It  has  been  said  that  success  came  too  easy  to 
Clay;  that  it  would  have  been  better  for  him  had 
he  been  obliged  to  work  harder  to  accomplish  things. 
If  by  this  is  understood  that  it  would  probably  have 
made  him  a  more  substantial  and  successful  states 
man,  especially  as  regards  the  Presidency,  the  obser 
vation  is  probably  correct  But  that  would  have 
meant  an  entirely  different  sort  of  Henry  Clay  ; 
not  the  spontaneous,  imperious,  lovable  Clay  that  we 
know,  to  whom  the  Presidency  could  not  have  added 
a  single  laurel,  and  which  might  have  brought  him 
only  pain  and  disappointment. 

It  is  not,  however,  to  be  inferred  that  Clay  was  no 
student.  He  worked  hard  at  his  cases,  but  depended 
less  for  success  upon  precedents  dug  up  from  musty 
tomes  than  upon  general  principles  of  equity.  Of 
course,  at  a  time  when  the  common  law,  which  is 
supposed  to  be  the  epitome  of  common  sense,  ruled 
most  cases,  this  was  easier  than  at  present;  but  even 
in  this  day  Clay  would  have  been  a  great  genius  at 
the  bar.  He  depended  upon  certain  well-fixed 
principles  for  most  of  his  success,  and  in  analysis  and 
conception  of  principles  applicable  he  was  a  genius. 
It  certainly  was  not  alone  because  "  he  had  the  gift 
o'  gab  wery  gallopin'  "  that  he  made  such  a  success 
at  the  bar ;  it  was  because  he  was  fundamentally  a 
great  lawyer  and  tactically  a  great  barrister. 

The  one  experience  at  the  bar  that  Clay  always 
regretted  was  his  appearance  as  counsel  for  Burr  when 
he  was  arrested,  charged  with  treason.  Clay  was 
reluctant  to  appear,  and  would  not  do  so  until  Burr 
had  given  his  written  assurance  that  he  had  not  only 
performed  no  act  of  treason,  but  had  meditated  none. 
Then  he  appeared  for  him,  but  later  discovered  the 
truth,  and  wrote  bitterly  that  he  had  been  deceived. 
Many  years  later  Burr  met  him  in  New  York  and 
offered  his  hand,  which  Clay  declined,  placing  his 

42 


CLAY    AS   A   LAWYER 

hand  in  his  waistcoat  Burr  then  asked  whether  he 
might  not  call,  and  an  appointment  was  made,  but 
Burr  failed  to  keep  it. 

During  his  first  term  in  the  Legislature,  Clay 
opposed  and  prevented  the  passage  of  a  silly  bill 
which  had  for  its  purpose  the  wiping  out  of  all  British 
decisions  as  precedents  in  local  courts.  He  defended 
the  common  law  and  British  jurists  at  a  time  when 
hatred  of  all  things  British  was  common, — almost 
compulsory  in  a  public  man. 


43 


IV 

CLAY    AS    A    FARMER 

CLAY  always  asserted  that  he  was  a  farmer ;  that 
the  law  and  politics  were  with  him  mere  side  issues. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  happiest  days  of  his  life 
were  spent  at  Ashland,  and  had  he  been  let  alone  by 
friends  and  Legislatures,  he  would  never  have  left 
it  after  his  disastrous  defeat  in  1832.  He  bought 
Ashland  about  the  time  of  his  marriage.  It  was  at 
first  a  small  farm  lying  just  outside  the  city  limits 
of  Lexington,  but  is  now  practically  in  the  town, 
which  has  grown  up  to  it.  He  added  to  the  original 
farm  until  it  reached  over  six  hundred  acres,  a 
large  estate  for  that  section.  Part  of  it  was  pur 
chased  with  his  wife's  money.  She  was  a  Hart, 
and  in  that  section  a  Hart  had  relatively  much  the 
position  of  the  Vanderbilts  in  New  York  to-day. 
The  Harts  had  immense  estates  in  Kentucky  and 
were  great  raisers  of  hemp.  Lexington  in  those 
days  was  the  most  famous  manufacturing  city  in  the 
West.  Its  wares  were  notable,  particularly  those 
of  iron  and  cordage.  The  first  cut-nail  machine 
in  the  world  is  said  to  have  been  set  up  in  Lex 
ington,  which  did  a  thriving  trade  with  the  whole 
of  the  West.  This  is  surprising  considering  the  early 
state  of  the  highways.  The  cordage  made  by  the 
Harts  was  largely  sold  in  the  East,  and  for  a  long 
time  they  supplied  the  entire  navy.  It  is  manifest 
that  such  an  immense  distance  and  such  bad  roads 
were  great  handicaps  in  competition  with  foreign 
cordage,  and,  according  to  the  authority  of  one  who 

44 


CLAY   AS   A   FARMER 

knew  him  intimately  and  is  connected  with  the 
family  by  marriage,  we  here  have  the  germ  of  two 
great  ideas  for  which  Clay  fought  for  so  many 
years, — protection  and  internal  improvements.  Ken 
tucky  cordage  could  compete  in  the  Eastern  markets 
only  when  there  were  easy  transportation  and  a  pro 
tective  tariff.  That  Clay  had  a  personal  interest  in 
these  policies  will  seem  to  some  self-sanctified  political 
philosophers  a  terrible  disgrace.  It  is  not  at  all  sur 
prising  nor  regrettable  that  this  was  the  case.  Clay 
was  too  big  a  man  to  expect  any  legislation  for  his 
benefit  alone  or  that  of  his  family,  but  it  brought  home 
to  him  very  practically  a  condition  which  existed  and 
pointed  out  the  remedy.  He  was  shrewd  enough  to 
see  that  if  Kentucky  was  benefited  by  a  tax  on  cord 
age  and  iron,  other  communities  could  receive  a  like 
benefit,  provided  there  was  a  way  to  get  products 
distributed.  This  was  a  very  practical  philosophy, 
and  it  dominated  Clay's  political  view  for  many 
years. 

Clay  experienced  his  greatest  financial  disaster 
over  an  attempt  to  cheapen  hemp  curing.  One  of 
the  exasperations  of  hemp  raising  is  that  it  takes  so 
long  for  the  crop  to  be  cured  for  market.  The 
green  hemp  is  cut  and  allowed  to  lie  out  in  the 
weather  an  entire  winter,  and  is  "  rotted"  by  dew 
and  rain  under  conditions  not  perfectly  understood. 
Some  ingenious  person  got  up  a  scheme  by  which 
the  stalk  could  artificially  be  rotted  down  to  the 
fibre  by  the  use  of  water.  This  was  called  the 
"water-rot"  scheme,  and  immense  sums  were  in 
vested  in  developing  it.  Clay's  son  Thomas  was 
one  of  the  leaders  in  the  enterprise,  investing  much 
of  his  own  fortune  and  raising  much  more  on  the 
notes  which  his  father  signed.  It  is  declared  by 
his  grandson  that  Henry  Clay  was  interested  as  a 
partner  in  the  affair,  which  turned  out  disastrously. 

45 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

The  hemp  could  be  prepared  by  water,  but  it  was 
found  to  be  much  more  expensive  than  by  the  old 
method.  It  was  after  this  failure  that  Clay  came 
home  and  went  to  the  Lexington  bank  to  make 
arrangement  for  continuing  his  notes  until  he  could 
pay  them,  when  he  was  informed  that  the  notes  had 
been  paid. 

"By  whom?"  asked  Clay. 

"Not  by  your  enemies,"  said  the  president,  and 
that  was  all  the  satisfaction  he  ever  got.  At  first  it 
was  very  hard  for  the  proud  man  to  accept  the 
anonymous  gift,  but  he  came  to  look  at  it  philo 
sophically  and  to  appreciate  the  burden  which  his 
friends  had  lifted  from  his  shoulders.  Much  of  the 
money  had  been  sent  anonymously,  its  return  was 
impossible,  and  it  was  impressed  on  Clay  that  he 
must  not  wound  his  friends  by  rejecting  that  which 
they  were  so  anxious  to  give. 

Otherwise  Ashland  was  a  success,  though,  as  we 
have  seen,  most  of  the  time  it  was  under  the  adminis 
tration  of  his  wife,  who  was  the  best  farmer  in  the 
neighborhood  and  he  was  second.  Clay  was  very 
fond  of  the  wine  which  he  raised  on  his  own  estate, 
and  offered  it  to  all  foreigners,  some  of  whom  are 
said  not  to  have  shared  the  enthusiasm  of  Mr.  Clay 
for  the  vintage,  which  was  crude  compared  with  those 
of  Europe.  When  abroad,  Clay  insisted  that  his 
wine  was  the  best.  He  had  no  still  of  his  own, 
as  was  common  in  that  section  ;  but  some  of  his 
neighbors  made  the  corn  whiskey  commonly  called 
Bourbon,  which  was  unknown  in  the  East,  though  in 
the  early  days  it  was  the  staple  currency  of  the  West 
Desiring  to  oblige  a  friend  at  Washington  who 
wanted  to  taste  the  best  Kentucky  afforded,  he  se 
cured  a  quart  bottle  of  what  was  declared  to  be 
the  finest  quality. 

There  was  no  convenient  express  then  to  take 
46 


CLAY   AS   A   FARMER 

charge  of  and  deliver  packages ;  and  indeed  there 
was  no  way  for  himself  to  make  the  journey  com 
fortably,  save  in  his  own  carriage.  But  he  set  out 
for  the  capital  hopefully,  accompanied  by  Mrs. 
Clay  and  his  son  John,  an  adolescent  youth,  Uncle 
Aaron  driving.  At  every  steep  hill,  and  there  were 
many,  in  tenderness  for  the  horses,  Mr.  Clay  abso 
lutely  insisted  that  he  and  his  son  should  get  out 
and  walk  ;  invariably  he  carried  the  bottle  of  whiskey 
in  his  hand,  and  it  were  well  had  he  invariably  kept 
it  under  his  eye.  Safely  arrived  at  the  seat  of  gov 
ernment,  the  intimates  were  speedily  got  together, 
the  bottle  of  so  much  cherishing  produced,  and,  after 
a  few  felicitous  remarks  -  from  Mr.  Clay,  opened. 
But  at  the  pouring,  outward  and  visible  consternation 
sat  on  every  countenance,  seeing  that  not  excellent 
whiskey  but  execrable  water  issued  forth.  Mr.  Clay's 
own  countenance  was  a  mirror  of  troubled  per 
plexity.  Feeling  that  something  must  be  said,  he 
was  beginning  to  say  it,  but  not  fluently, — the  ex 
planation  was  so  obscure, — until  a  certain  expres 
sion  twisting  the  ingenuous  features  of  his  son  caused 
a  light  to  break. 

"Ah,  John,  you  young  scamp  !"  he  said,  shaking 
a  finger  at  the  culprit,  who  had,  with  all  pomp 
consistent  with  secrecy,  regaled  some  chosen  spirits 
of  his  own  set  with  what  had  been  intended  for  their 
betters. 

On  another  occasion  the  conduct  of  this  son 
towards  his  illustrious  father  left  a  good  deal  to  be 
desired.  With  an  antipathy  to  dogs,  Mr.  Clay  never 
allowed  one  to  follow  him,  but  he  tolerated  Nep, 
his  son  John's  hunting  dog,  solely  on  account  of  his 
valuable  assistance  in  procuring  the  delicious  birds  so 
often  on  the  table.  John  and  Nep  were  inseparable  ; 
where  one  went  the  other  also  went,  and  neither  was 
averse  to  the  comforts  of  life.  Therefore  on  one  cold 

47 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

morning  Mr.  Clay,  coming  into  the  family  sitting- 
room,  found  this  pair  occupying  most  of  the  space 
before  the  open  wood-fire.  "  Get  away,"  said  the 
master  of  the  premises,  pushing  the  dog  with  his  foot. 
The  indignant  setter,  with  a  growl,  lost  no  time  in 
fastening  his  teeth  in  Mr.  Clay's  clothing.  "  Call 
off  your  dog,  John,"  said  the  alarmed  statesman. 
"I  believe  he  has  bitten  me."  John  was  well  ac 
quainted  with  Nep,  and,  knowing  that  he  was  merely 
indulging  in  a  little  game  of  bluff,  did  not  repress 
an  undutiful  smile  as,  after  letting  the  old  gentleman 
endure  some  excitement,  he  led  his  favorite  from 
the  room. 

Clay  was  exceedingly  fond  of  cranberries,  which 
did  not  grow  in  the  neighborhood.  A  friend  named 
Simmons  was  going  to  a  county  where  cranberries 
were  plenty,  and  Clay  wrote  to  a  man  of  whom 
he  had  heard  to  send  him  "  100  bushels  per 
Simmons."  The  dealer  was  not  an  educated  man, 
and  managed  only  to  make  out  that  Clay  wanted 
one  hundred  bushels  of  persimmons.  These  were 
plentiful  in  the  neighborhood,  and  he  had  all  hands 
available  picking  them.  When  Simmons  was  ready 
to  return,  he  sent  eighty  bushels  of  the  fruit  along 
and  said  that  the  rest  would  soon  follow.  Clay  was 
so  tickled  over  the  joke  that  he  paid  the  bill  without 
a  murmur. 

Clay  was  also  fond  of  pigs.  He  imported  the 
finest  breeds,  and  was  wont,  when  at  Ashland,  to 
go  every  morning  to  feed  them  with  his  own  hand. 
Late  in  life,  on  a  rainy  morning,  a  visitor  at  Ashland 
was  astonished  to  hear  through  the  partition  a 
warm  discussion  between  Clay  and  Charles,  his 
valet,  the  latter  insisting  that  Clay  stay  in  bed,  and 
finally,  as  a  last  and  successful  inducement,  offering 
to  go  and  feed  the  pigs  himself  Clay  always  kept 
a  bowl  of  shelled  corn  in  the  dining-room  to  feed  his 

48 


CLAY   AS   A   FARMER 

chickens,  which  would  flock  to  him  when    he   ap 
proached. 

But  the  pride  of  Ashland  in  those  days  was  the 
stud.  Clay  was  fond  of  horses,  and  his  thorough 
breds  became  famous  the  world  over.  In  1830  he 
began  breeding  thoroughbreds  almost  exclusively, 
whereas  before  this  he  had  raised  mules  and  horses 
of  various  kinds.  He  had  a  mile  track  built  on  his 
place  for  exercising  his  horses,  and  it  is  still  in  use 
by  descendants  of  his  original  stud.  He  bought  a 
number  of  broodmares,  including  Allegrante,  for 
which  he  paid  fifteen  hundred  dollars  to  Governor 
Barbour,  of  Virginia,  and  this  was  considered  an 
enormous  price  in  those  days.  He  also  purchased  a 
half  interest  in  Stamboul,  the  famous  stallion,  being 
one  of  four  presented  to  our  minister  at  the  court 
of  the  Sultan.  When  they  arrived  in  this  country 
they  were  promptly  seized  by  the  government  and 
sold,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  unconstitutional  for 
an  officer  of  the  government  to  receive  a  gift  from 
a  foreign  potentate.  Three  thoroughbreds  which 
afterwards  became  famous  were  presented  to  him 
by  admiring  friends, — Yorkshire,  Magnolia,  and  Mar 
garet  Wood.  These  are  not  well  known  to  the 
present  generation,  but  sixty  years  ago  they  were 
household  words  among  lovers  of  horseflesh.  York 
shire  became  a  celebrated  sire,  and  his  get  have  won 
races  on  many  tracks.  Magnolia,  known  as  "  Em 
press  of  the  Stud-Book,"  was  only  a  broodmare,  but 
her  get  became  famous.  Her  first  foal,  named 
Magic,  was  entered  for  the  celebrated  Phoenix  Hotel 
stakes  at  the  Lexington  races.  One  day,  as  Clay 
passed  a  jeweller's  shop,  he  was  invited  in  to  see  the 
pitcher  that  went  with  the  race.  He  was  surprised, 
it  is  said,  to  find  it  already  inscribed  with  the  name 
Magic  as  the  winner. 

"She  has  not  won  it  yet,"  he  observed. 
4  49 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

"Oh,  but  she  will,"  observed  the  jeweller. 

To  this  Mr.  Clay  replied  that  he  was  not  respon 
sible,  and  if  Magic  lost,  the  jeweller  must  provide  a 
new  pitcher  at  his  own  expense,  "for,"  said  Clay, 
"hand,  art,  or  part  I  hadn't  in  it." 

Magic  won. 

It  is  of  interest  to  know  that  Iroquois,  the  only 
American  horse  that  ever  won  the  English  Derby, 
was  a  direct  descendant  of  Magnolia,  and  that  other 
records  of  the  turf  now  standing  were  made  by  her 
descendants.  Margaret  Wood's  descendants  have 
had  almost  as  illustrious  a  record.  One  of  her  sons 
was  Wade  Hampton,  famous  in  his  day  for  a  villa- 
nous  disposition.  Sometimes  he  would  win  a  race 
without  the  slightest  trouble  to  any  one,  and  at  other 
times  he  would  be  utterly  unmanageable  and  throw 
any  jockey  that  ever  lived.  At  New  Orleans,  where 
Clay  was  present  at  a  celebrated  race,  Wade  Hampton 
seemed  to  be  in  good  form  and  fine  disposition.  He 
had  many  backers,  and  fortunes  were  staked  on  his 
success.  He  got  off  well,  took  the  lead,  and  had 
the  race  won  easily,  when,  not  far  from  the  finish, 
he  suddenly  became  interested  in  something  else, 
stopped  short,  walked  to  the  rail,  and  began  to  nib 
ble  grass. 

In  1842  Clay  gave  over  the  active  management 
of  the  stud  to  his  son  John  M.,  who  lived  for  nearly 
fifty  years  afterwards  and  was  one  of  the  famous 
breeders  of  the  turf.  He  never  had  a  large  stud, 
preferring  quality  to  quantity.  After  he  died  his 
widow  continued  the  business,  and  to-day  manages 
the  Ashland  stock-farm,  which  is  the  only  portion 
of  the  original  estate  which  has  never  left  the  family 
since  the  death  of  the  statesman.  She  has  some 
magnificent  horses,  and  is  as  active  and  intelligent 
a  breeder  as  there  is  on  the  turf.  In  her  home  is 
much  of  the  furniture  that  belonged  at  old  Ashland, 

50 


CLAY   AS   A   FARMER 

including  the  bed  in  which  Henry  Clay  and  his  wife 
slept  and  in  which  the  latter  died.  In  a  recent  talk 
of  the  history  of  the  stud,  Mrs.  Clay  remarked, 
"Among  the  yearlings  sold  by  me  have  been  three 
Derby  winners,  one  Realization  winner,  besides  other 
good  stake  winners."  All  these  are  descendants  of 
Henry  Clay's  original  stud. 

When  Clay  was  released  from  political  cares  it  was 
his  delight  to  entertain  at  Ashland,  and  there  is  an 
amusing  story  told  by  one  of  his  descendants  con 
cerning  the  experiences  of  a  personal  friend  but 
bitter  political  opponent. 

Judge  P was  himself  a  man  of  eloquence, 

and  noted  for  his  unfailing  wit.  In  passing  a  night 
at  Ashland,  by  some  mischance  he  fell  from  an  up 
stairs  window,  breaking  his  leg.  His  cries  soon 
brought  to  his  aid  a  relieving  party  with  Mr,  Clay 
at  its  head. 

"  My  dear  friend,"  he  exclaimed,  in  accents  of 
distress,  "how  did  this  happen?" 

The  suffering  gentleman  repressed  his  groans  to 
promulgate  the  following  : 

"Mr.  Clay,  troubled  in  mind  by  thinking  over 
some  of  your  obnoxious  measures,  I  was  not  sleeping 
well,  and,  experiencing  much  discomfort  and  desiring 
fresh  air,  I  rose,  going  to  a  window  ;  but  being  there 
confronted  by  your  gigantic  and  visionary  schemes 
of  Internal  Improvement,  I  fled  to  the  door,  meeting 
your  Missouri  Compromise.  I  rushed  on  for  the 
stairs,  and  there,  in  a  menacing  attitude,  stood  your 
hateful  opposition  to  the  Sub-Treasury  Bill.  In 
despair,  I  jumped  through  the  nearest  window." 

Kentucky,  then  as  now,  was  celebrated  for  its 
mules,  which  Clay  raised  in  great  numbers.  When 
his  son  was  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  Lisbon,  he  had 
him  select  and  ship  two  very  fine  Spanish  jackasses, 
whose  progeny  brought  high  prices.  He  was  es- 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

pecially  fond  of  merino  sheep,  and  secured  one  flock 
of  fifty  ewes  which  became  notable.  It  was  from 
the  backs  of  these  came  the  wool  that  made  the 
homespun  he  was  wont  to  wear  so  proudly  and 
which,  it  is  said,  "he  wore  like  a  prince." 

He  was  always  interested  in  the  farming  of  his 
sons.  In  the  summer  of  1832,  when  the  campaign 
for  the  Presidency  was  at  its  height,  he  wrote  a 
letter  to  his  son  Thomas,  still  preserved,  in  which  he 
says,  "How  is  your  crop  of  corn,  your  ditching? 
Has  it  realized  expectations?  Our  crops  of  corn 
and  hemp  are  both  unpromising,  but  better  than  was 
expected  some  weeks  ago.  The  corn  has  been  much 
thrown  down  by  a  recent  storm,"  and  so  on  in 
details,  with  an  utter  oblivion  of  politics  and  Presi 
dencies. 

Clay's  personal  activities  as  a  farmer  are  a  little 
difficult  to  understand,  now  that  the  entire  system 
of  slavery  has  been  swept  away.  He  was  a  prac 
tical  farmer  in  that  he  studied  the  subject  closely, 
but  it  is  not  possible  to  imagine  him  personally 
attending  to  the  work  in  the  fields,  with  his  coat 
off,  as  did  some  of  his  contemporaries  from  New 
England.  John  Quincy  Adams  was  not  in  the  least 
hesitant  about  taking  part  in  the  haying  or  harvest 
ing  at  Quincy.  Even  Webster  loved  to  dig  in  the 
soil;  but  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  Clay  or  any 
other  Southern  gentleman  in  such  a  position.  Every 
plantation  was  worked  by  slaves,  under  the  care  of 
an  overseer,  and  to  this  man  the  owner  gave  in 
structions  and  looked  for  results.  For  some  years 
Clay  had  a  poor  man  as  overseer,  and  greatly  re 
joiced  when  he  found  a  better  one.  He  spent 
much  of  his  time,  even  when  at  Ashland,  pacing  up 
and  down  the  walks  and  meditating  on  affairs.  Unlike 
many  Southerners,  he  had  no  library,  but  kept  his 
books  in  the  dining-room,  and  their  number  was 

52 


CLAY   AS   A   FARMER 

not  very  large.  He  found  it  better  to  originate  than 
to  copy. 

There  were  about  fifty  slaves  on  the  Ashland  farm 
of  four  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  not  counting  that 
portion  which  his  son  John  had  charge  of  and  in 
herited.  Perhaps  ten  of  these  were  house  or  personal 
servants.  Of  the  rest,  probably  fifteen  were  either 
too  young  or  too  old  to  work.  This  would  leave 
about  twenty-five  to  work  what  was  not  a  large 
farm.  In  these  days  a  man  would  go  into  bank 
ruptcy  with  so  many  to  keep  on  such  a  small  estate, 
and  it  can  be  seen  how  wasteful  were  the  methods 
employed  when  such  a  large  force  was  engaged. 
The  negro  did  not  work  too  hard,  and  in  the  winter 
there  was  still  less  for  him  to  do.  Yet  they  seem  to 
have  all  been  needed.  In  Clay's  last  days  he  was 
much  distressed  in  Washington  to  learn  that  one 
of  his  best  slaves  was  dead  and  that  another  was 
sick.  This  compelled  getting  two  to  replace  them. 
He  wrote  frequently  from  Washington  on  the  subject, 
urging  his  son  to  hire  slaves  rather  than  purchase,  if 
he  could ;  but  to  buy,  if  necessary. 

His  general  view  of  farming  may  be  learned  from 
a  letter  written  in  1833,  in  which  he  says, — 

"  Since  my  return  from  Washington  I  have  been  princi 
pally  occupied  with  the  operations  of  my  farm,  which  have 
more  and  more  interest  for  me.  There  is  a  great  difference, 
I  think,  between  a  farm  employed  in  raising  dead  produce 
for  market  and  one  which  is  applied,  as  mine  is,  to  the  rearing 
of  all  kinds  of  live  stock.  I  have  a  Maltese  ass,  the  Arabian 
horse,  the  merino  and  Saxe-merino  sheep,  the  English  Here 
ford  and  Durham  cattle,  the  goat,  the  mule,  and  the  hog. 
The  progress  of  these  animals  from  their  infancy  to  maturity 
presents  a  constantly  varying  subject  of  interest,  and  I  never 
go  out  of  my  house  without  meeting  with  some  one  of  them 
to  engage  agreeably  my  attentions.  Then  our  fine  green 
sward,  our  natural  parks,  our  beautiful  undulating  country, 
everywhere  exhibiting  combinations  of  grass  and  trees  or 
luxuriant  crops,  all  conspire  to  render  home  delightful." 

53 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Of  course,  to  maintain  all  his  cattle  and  horses  he 
had  to  raise  large  crops  of  grain,  little  of  which  he 
marketed.  The  only  produce  commonly  sold  was 
milk,  butter,  and  eggs,  which  were  highly  esteemed 
the  whole  region  over. 

About  1 849,  when  he  again  re-entered  public  life, 
he  seemed  to  feel  that  he  was  to  die  in  harness,  and 
was  anxious  to  get  Ashland  off  his  hands,  and  urged 
his  son  James,  who  had  removed  to  Missouri,  to  pur 
chase  it.  James  was  esteemed  a  wealthy  man  at 
the  time,  but  for  some  reason  he  declined.  The 
aged  Senator  felt  that  the  double  responsibility  was 
too  much  for  him,  even  though  his  wife  had  charge 
of  the  estate  in  his  absence.  He  apparently  wanted 
her  to  be  relieved  of  the  responsibilities,  but  this 
was  not  to  be. 

After  his  death,  Mrs.  Clay  made  her  home  with  her 
son  John,  to  whom  Clay  had  bequeathed  the  portion 
devoted  to  breeding  thoroughbreds.  That  portion 
of  the  estate  is  still  owned  by  the  widow  of  John. 

It  became  necessary  to  sell  Ashland  in  order  to 
distribute  the  estate,  and  it  was  sold  to  James,  who 
removed  from  Missouri  and  was  later  elected  to 
Congress.  Greatly  to  the  indignation  of  some 
members  of  the  family,  he  tore  down  the  mansion- 
house  and  rebuilt  it  on  the  same  foundations,  practi^ 
cally  from  the  same  plans,  using  the  same  material. 
While  the  excuse  given  was  that  the  old  house  was 
not  safe,  there  are  those  who  knew  James  and  think 
that  he  simply  had  a  mania  for  building  and  wished 
to  put  a  little  more  style  into  the  house.  Still, 
Henry  Clay  is  reported  to  have  said  that  the  house 
would  not  much  more  than  last  his  time.  When 
the  war  came  on  James  went  South,  and  later  died 
in  Canada.  Kentucky  bought  the  estate,  and  it  was 
used  by  the  military  college  authorities  for  a  time,  but 
later  it  was  bought  by  Colonel  Henry  Clay  McDowell, 

54 


CLAY   AS   A   FARMER 

who  had  married  a  granddaughter  of  Henry  Clay. 
Colonel  McDowell  is  dead,  but  his  widow  now  (1904) 
resides  in  the  reconstructed  mansion.  The  house 
is  filled  with  relics  of  the  great  statesman,  and  the 
grounds  have  been  restored  as  nearly  as  possible 
to  the  condition  in  which  he  left  them.  "  Clay's 
Walk"  is  a  semicircular  path  where  he  used  to  pace 
up  and  down  when  pondering  on  public  affairs.  A 
very  few  ash-trees  which  gave  the  name  to  the 
estate  are  left.  It  is  not  a  long-lived  species,  though 
beautiful.  The  old  ice-houses  near  the  mansion  are 
still  as  he  left  them,  covered  with  curious  conical 
roofs  stretching  from  the  ground  to  the  height  of  a 
dozen  feet.  The  mansion  is  covered  with  ivy,  and 
has  almost  the  same  external  appearance  as  when 
the  Great  Commoner  left  it. 

Almost  his  last  days  there  are  still  recollected  by 
one  of  his  descendants,  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  of 
Lexington,  who  tells  that  when  a  boy  he  can  just 
remember  being  at  the  house  when  the  Legislature 
of  Kentucky,  headed  by  the  venerable  John  J.  Crit- 
tenden,  came  in  a  body  to  Ashland  and  informed  the 
aged  statesman  that  the  State  had  asked  him  once 
more  to  assume  the  toga  that  he  might  heal  the 
bleeding  wounds  of  the  republic.  Mr.  Clay  came 
upon  the  porch  and  was  visibly  moved.  In  a  voice 
broken  with  emotion  he  announced  that  he  would 
accept  the  call  of  duty,  though  he  had  hoped  to  end 
his  days  in  peace  at  Ashland.  Soon  afterwards  he 
departed  for  Washington,  where  he  died,  having 
only  been  home  twice  in  the  mean  time. 


55 


V 

THE   YOUNGEST   SENATOR 

AT  twenty-nine  Clay  had  achieved  a  success  far 
beyond  his  wildest  hopes  at  the  time  he  entered 
the  State,  nine  years  before.  He  was  married  into 
the  richest  family  of  the  State,  owned  a  comfortable 
estate,  enjoyed  about  the  best  practice  at  the  bar,  had 
served  a  term  in  the  Legislature,  and  was  universally 
popular.  Having  achieved  so  much  by  an  immense 
amount  of  energy  that  had  called  for  less  studious 
industry  than  one  would  naturally  suppose,  he  felt 
it  fitting  that  he  should  take  a  short  vacation.  The 
opportunity  came  when  General  Adair  resigned  from 
the  United  States  Senate  and  the  governor  appointed 
Clay  in  his  place  for  the  short  session  of  1806-7. 

At  the  time  no  comment  seems  to  have  been  made 
upon  the  fact  that  he  was  not  of  constitutional  age 
and  did  not  become  so  until  after  his  fractional  term 
had  expired.  Afterwards  a  good  deal  was  made  of 
it  and  many  explanations  offered.  It  is  asserted  now 
by  one  of  the  family  that  Clay  really  was  thirty  years 
old,  as  shown  by  one  of  the  family  Bibles,  which  con 
tradicts  the  currently  accepted  date  of  his  birth. 
This  may,  however,  be  confused  with  the  fact  that 
there  was  an  elder  Henry  who  died  when  a  baby,  and 
for  whom  the  statesman  was  named.  It  may  be 
that  Clay  thought  that  a  man  almost  thirty  was  eli 
gible  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  or  it  may  be  that 
neither  he  nor  any  one  else  thought  of  it  at  all.  The 
fact  remains  that  he  was  the  only  man  who  has  sat 
through  his  term  in  the  Senate  without  being  con- 

56 


THE   YOUNGEST   SENATOR 

stitutionally  eligible.  As  nothing  was  said  of  the 
matter  at  that  time,  it  need  not  concern  us  now, 
except  as  a  curious  event 

As  Clay  entered  Washington  from  Alexandria,  he 
had  to  take  a  ferry-boat,  and  here  was  his  first  prac 
tical  introduction  to  the  subject  of  internal  improve 
ments  which  was  later  to  occupy  so  much  of  his 
attention.  He  was  not  aware  that  a  bridge  was  con 
templated,  and  when  he  expressed  his  conviction  that 
one  ought  to  be  built,  it  was  with  joy  he  learned  from 
a  ferryman  that  the  subject  was  coming  up  in  the  en 
suing  Congress,  of  which  he  was  a  member.  Prac 
tically  all  he  did  at  this  brief  session  was  to  make 
an  ardent  speech  for  the  bridge,  in  which  he  ex 
plained  his  whole  position  on  internal  improvements, 
showing  a  liberality  of  view  that  shocked  some  of  the 
older  men  who  were  strict  constructionists  of  the  Jef- 
fersonian  sort.  Now,  Clay  was  at  this  time  as  ardent 
an  admirer  of  Jefferson  as  walked  the  Capitol,  but 
his  worship  of  the  Constitution  was  confined  to  the 
benefits  derived  or  to  be  derived  from  that  document, 
and  not  for  its  mere  wording.  It  did  not  worry  him 
a  bit  that  there  was  in  it  no  expressed  power  to  build 
bridges  or  turnpikes.  It  seemed  to  him  that  if  a 
good  thing  could  be  accomplished,  and  there  was  no 
actual  prohibition,  common  sense  dictated  going 
ahead  and  doing  it.  He  expressed  his  views  freely 
and  with  the  exuberant  manner  common  to  his 
address  to  a  jury.  The  personal  impression  he  made 
upon  the  Senators  was  that  of  a  young  and  resource 
ful  man  with  a  tendency  to  harangue  his  hearers 
and  a  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  Senatorial  dignity. 
A  more  funereal  legislative  body  never  existed  than 
the  United  States  Senate  in  the  early  days.  For 
years  it  had  met  behind  closed  doors,  and  now  that 
its  sessions  were  open,  the  proceedings  were  of  the 
most  formal  and  doleful  character.  There  were  no 

57 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

efforts  at  oratory ;  few  speeches  of  any  sort  were 
made,  it  being  the  custom  for  the  Senators  to  briefly 
express  their  views  and  then  vote.  A  Senator  of 
the  period  complains  that  Clay  was  fond  of  flowery 
talk  and  much  given  to  imagery,  while  his  discourse 
lacked  logical  sequence.  As  his  speeches  on  these 
occasions  have  not  been  preserved,  the  criticism  may 
have  been  just ;  but  probably  the  mannerisms  of  Clay 
affected  the  critic  more  than  his  lack  of  logic,  for 
on  matters  connected  with  the  tariff  and  improve 
ments  Clay  spoke  logically  and  forcibly. 

We  do  know  that  Clay  enjoyed  himself  hugely 
that  winter  in  the  Senate.  He  was  to  be  found  at 
all  prominent  social  functions  and  seemed  delighted 
with  his  "vacation,"  which  also  gave  him  a  taste  for 
further  experiences  of  the  sort  He  wrote  home 
that  his  reception  had  exceeded  his  expectations. 

One  thing  he  had  got  under  way,  but  was  not  to  see 
fulfilled.  He  helped  secure  the  passage  of  a  reso 
lution  asking  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  report 
a  plan  for  clearing  out  rivers,  building  roads,  and 
making  such  other  internal  improvements  as  might 
seem  necessary.  He  had  no  scruples  about  using 
public  money  for  this  purpose,  and  he  was  not  one 
of  those  who,  like  Jefferson  and  Madison,  insisted 
that  an  amendment  must  be  made  to  the  Federal 
Constitution  before  such  things  could  properly  be 
done.  The  country  had  just  been  electrified  by  the 
report  of  Lewis  and  Clark  on  their  journey  to 
Oregon.  Expansion  was  the  intoxicant  of  the  hour. 
If  Jefferson  had  been  allowed  to  have  his  way,  he 
would  not  have  secured  the  annexation  of  Louisiana 
without  an  amendment ;  so  it  was  not  unnatural 
that  Clay  and  others  considered  him  an  unnecessarily 
straight-laced  administrator.  It  ought  to  be  remem 
bered  always  that  Clay  was  one  of  the  first  to  hold 
that  this  country  had  all  the  attributes  of  nationality, 

58 


THE   YOUNGEST   SENATOR 

and  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  seek  for  them 
through  the  Constitution  in  the  manner  of  conduct 
ing  a  patent-right  suit.  We  shall  see  later,  however, 
that  this  view  was  subject  to  limitations. 

Clay  went  back  to  Kentucky  pleased  with  his 
reception  at  Washington,  but  still  believing  Kentucky 
the  fairest  place  on  earth.  On  his  return  he  was 
sent  once  more  to  the  Legislature.  This  was  more 
of  an  honor  than  at  present.  It  was  customary  to 
choose  the  most  eminent  men  as  Representatives  and 
Senators,  and  the  honor  was  seldom  refused,  even 
when  it  involved  great  pecuniary  sacrifice.  It  was 
a  dignity  offered  him,  even  after  he  had  been  a  can 
didate  for  the  Presidency  and  had  just  left  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  State. 

The  war-clouds  were  now  hanging  low  and  the 
country  was  in  a  state  of  ferment.  Most  of  the 
people  sided  with  Jefferson  in  his  policy,  which  was 
far  from  successful,  and  which  exhausted  the  country 
at  the  time  war  actually  began.  Clay  was  still 
ardent  in  his  love  of  the  first  Republican  President, 
and  offered  a  resolution  commending  him  and  his 
policy,  which  was  passed  after  Humphrey  Marshall 
had  opposed  and  alone  voted  against  it  This  was 
the  time  when  he  proposed  that  every  member  of 
the  Legislature  should  wear  clothes  only  of  domestic 
manufacture,  and  once  more  Marshall  attacked  him 
as  a  demagogue,  the  result  of  which  was  the  famous 
duel,  as  narrated  elsewhere.  The  blood  of  martyrdom 
thus  shed  by  Clay  was  destined  to  have  wide-spread 
results  in  the  formation  of  a  party  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  American  industries. 

Once  more  he  retired  to  Ashland,  and  was  plant 
ing  and  pleading  at  the  bar  when  another  summons 
came  for  him  to  go  to  the  Senate,  this  time  to 
serve  two  years.  In  reality  this  may  be  considered 
the  beginning  of  his  national  career.  For  the  rest 

59 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

of  his  years  he  was  in  public  life,  except  during  brief 
intervals  when  he  refused  to  leave  home.  This  session 
was  not  to  be  a  vacation  for  him.  Foreign  affairs 
had  been  going  from  bad  to  worse,  and  a  conflict  with 
either  Great  Britain  or  France,  or  both,  was  imminent 
The  young  Senator  from  Kentucky  now  took  his 
place  as  one  of  the  forceful  men  of  that  body.  He 
had  no  false  sense  of  modesty  about  him.  He 
bowed  down  to  no  one  and  admitted  no  superiority. 
Though  he  could  be  arrogant  and  offensive  in  the 
Senate  when  provoked,  as  a  rule  he  was  urbane 
and  delighted  his  associates  with  his  engaging  man 
ner.  But  he  stood  on  his  own  feet  and  worked 
out  his  own  conclusions  without  advice. 

He  opened  the  fight  for  protection  by  offering 
an  amendment  to  one  of  the  supply  bills,  requiring 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  purchase  supplies  of 
hemp,  cordage,  sail-cloth,  etc.,  and  to  give  preference 
to  articles  of  domestic  growth  or  manufacture.  This 
was  not  done  as  a  theoretical  measure  ;  it  was  to 
help  his  own  section  and  his  own  family.  At  this 
session  he  developed  his  views  on  protection,  which 
were  still  moderate,  and  those  of  the  Western  farmer 
rather  than  of  an  actual  manufacturer.  Most  things 
of  normal  every-day  use  were  then  supplied  by  the 
people  of  the  vicinage.  The  neighboring  farms 
produced  homespun  and  leather  and  many  of  the 
things  which  have  long  passed  into  the  hands  of 
great  single  industries.  Clay's  ambition  was  not  to 
make  the  country  great  as  a  manufacturing  centre, 
but  to  see  that  domestic  wants  were  well  supplied. 
He  had  not,  could  not  have  had  a  conception  of 
the  tremendous  development  that  was  to  come  in 
the  West,  of  the  new  sorts  of  transportation  that 
were  to  revolutionize  trade  and  make  communication 
easy.  He  was  thinking  of  the  system  by  which  every 
county  is  well-nigh  an  independent  community  from 

60 


THE   YOUNGEST   SENATOR 

an  industrial  point  of  view.  He  wanted  to  aid  the 
farmer  and  planter  and  to  encourage  those  trades 
which  were  then  largely  pursued  in  the  homes, 
such  as  weaving,  making  hats,  shoes,  and  even  nails. 
He  had  no  love  for  great  centres  where  operatives 
huddled  together,  but  was  still  inclined  to  the  patri 
archal  system  of  government  as  it  was  in  his  own 
section. 

His  one  sensational  speech  of  the  term  was  in 
reply  to  Horsey,  of  Delaware,  at  a  time  when 
Madison  had  become  tired  of  delay  in  the  West 
Florida  question  and  had  annexed  it  by  procla 
mation,  announcing  that  title  had  not  before  been 
actually  exercised  simply  as  a  matter  of  concilia 
tion.  The  dying  Federalists  were  anxious  for  any 
chance  to  strike  the  administration.  Horsey  took 
it  upon  himself  to  assail  Madison  and  deny  that 
we  had  any  claim  to  West  Florida.  This  aroused 
the  young  eagle  from  Kentucky,  and  in  his  speech, 
declared  to  have  been  the  most  extraordinary  in 
the  memory  of  living  members,  he  proceeded  to 
rake  the  Federalist  gray-haired  men  with  his  irony 
and  to  state  his  position  with  the  utmost  freedom. 
It  was  a  common  charge  of  the  Republicans  that 
the  Federalists  were  really  British  at  heart,  and  that 
they  were  willing  to  sacrifice  true  American  interests 
for  the  sake  of  keeping  on  good  terms  with  the 
court  of  St.  James.  Clay  went  further,  and  threw 
down  the  gauntlet  to  Horsey.  Read  to-day,  this 
speech  gives  no  evidence  of  that  burning  eloquence 
for  which  its  speaker  was  noted.  But  we  have 
contemporary  evidence  that,  when  he  announced 
that  the  time  had  come  when  we  should  conduct  our 
affairs  without  consulting  Great  Britain,  his  eyes 
gleamed  with  fire  and  his  face  glowed  with  indigna 
tion,  so  that  the  Senate  was  stirred  for  the  first  time 
with  the  eloquence  which  it  was  to  know  for  the  next 

61 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

forty  years.  The  speech  was  not  all  denunciation. 
It  declared  a  desire  for  peace,  an  honorable  peace, 
and  a  peace  even  with  concessions  ;  but  Clay  took 
his  stand  firmly  that  the  time  had  come  when  we 
must  assert  our  independence  at  every  hazard  and 
refuse  to  let  our  seamen  be  the  lawful  prey  of  British 
frigate  captains.  It  was  in  denouncing  impressment 
that  the  speaker  reached  his  highest  flights,  in  which 
he  made  his  most  profound  impression  upon  the 
country,  and  which  gave  him  that  national  fame  at 
the  very  outset  of  a  career  which  most  men  are  glad 
to  have  achieved  by  a  long  term  of  service.  Read 
to-day,  many  of  Clay's  speeches  seem  to  have  a  good 
deal  of  spread-eagleism  about  them  ;  to  have  in  some 
respects  the  school-boy  style.  This  is  in  part  due  to 
imperfect  reporting  and  in  part  to  the  fact  that  Clay's 
speeches  cannot  be  dissociated  from  his  own  per 
sonality.  It  is  as  unjust  to  him  to  read  his  speeches 
as  it  is  to  read  the  score  of  a  Chopin  sonata.  Each 
requires  an  instrument  for  interpretation,  and  Clay's 
was  one  of  the  finest  human  instruments  that  a  patriot 
ever  played  upon.  In  his  forensic  flights  he  struck 
the  key-note  of  national  devotion.  It  was  his  part 
to  wake  the  fires  of  patriotism  and  to  bind  together 
the  States  as  never  before.  It  is  true  that  he  had 
none  of  the  profundity  of  Webster,  but  in  his  day 
and  generation  he  served  the  needed  purpose.  The 
bugle  call  he  sounded  drove  England  tacitly,  if  not 
openly,  to  revoke  her  right  of  search  and  to  recog 
nize  the  flag,  as  Clay  demanded,  as  the  credential 
of  every  American  seaman. 

It  was  at  this  session  that  Clay  made  the  first  great 
error  of  his  career, — one  from  which  he  never  fully 
recovered  ;  one  for  which  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life 
apologizing.  He  fought  the  recharter  of  Hamilton's 
first  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  with  such 
bitterness  and  success  that  his  vote  in  the  Senate 

62 


THE   YOUNGEST   SENATOR 

would  have  carried  the  measure,  and  certainly  his 
influence  in  the  House  could  have  secured  the  one 
vote  needed.  A  discussion  of  this  will  be  found 
elsewhere ;  it  must  be  noted  here  in  chronological 
order. 

At  the  end  of  his  term  Clay  had  made  an  im 
pression  on  the  Senate  such  as  no  young  man  has 
done  before  nor  since,  such  as  no  man  has  ever  done  in 
an  equal  space  of  time.  It  was  later,  in  the  House, 
that  Josiah  Quincy  called  him  "a  statesman  with 
pinfeathers  not  yet  grown  ;"  but  this,  if  any,  was  his 
pinfeather  stage,  and  he  ill  deserved  the  gibe  from  the 
stout  old  Federalist.  Clay  might  have  been  elected 
to  the  regular  term,  but  he  declined.  He  found  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Senate  too  close  for  him.  His 
speeches  fell,  for  the  most  part,  on  deaf  ears,  and, 
having  decided  to  continue  in  public  life,  he  delib 
erately  chose  to  enter  the  House,  where  his  bold 
leadership  was  needed,  and  where  in  the  rough  and 
tumble  of  debate  he  would  find  a  better  field  for 
his  abilities.  He  was  promptly  chosen  from  his 
district,  and  was  re-elected  as  often  as  he  wished. 
There  have  been  statesmen,  like  Benton  and  Adams, 
who,  having  failed  of  election  to  the  Senate,  have 
chosen  the  House  in  preference  to  oblivion,  but 
Clay's  action  stands  unique.  He  is  one  of  the  few 
statesmen  who  never  was  rejected  by  any  constit 
uency,  whose  service  was  not  continuous  simply 
because  he  would  insist  on  declining,  and  who  was 
ever  begged  to  return  to  public  life,  and  never  was 
refused  anything  he  asked  of  Kentucky,  while  he 
did  refuse  ambassadorships,  judgeships,  and  cabinet 
places  many  times.  When  his  ambition  was  aroused, 
it  burned  to  white  heat,  and  when  he  was  defeated, 
either  in  measures  or  for  the  Presidential  nomina 
tion  or  election,  he  recovered  his  equanimity  sooner 
than  any  one  else. 

63 


VI 

WAR-HAWK 

"\  CLAY'S  earliest  recollection  was  of  the  day  when 
his  father  was  buried  and  the  Tarleton  troops  raided 
his  home,  carrying  off  slaves,  provisions,  and  even  his 
mother's  wardrobe,  for  which  they  could  have  had  no 
possible  use.  But  the  deepest  outrage  was  that  a 
trooper  thrust  his  sword  into  the  newly  made  grave, 
which  was  in  the  yard  near  the  home.  ]  That  was  an 
infamy  Henry  never  forgot,  and  in  a  sense  it  was  to 
him  like  the  young  Hannibal's  oath  never  to  cease 
war  upon  the  Romans.;  Clay  was  not  vindictive  by 
nature,  but  that  injury  burned  deep  in  his  soul  and 
he  never  forgot  it,  not  even  when  he  was  an  honored 
guest  in  Great  Britain,)  It  would  be  too  much  to  say 
that  this  incident  dominated  or  even  greatly  influ 
enced  him  in  his  political  career,  especially  in  the 
part  he  took  in  bringing  on  the  war  of  1812  ;  yet  it 
cannot  be  eliminated,  for  he  was  so  intensely  human 
that  he  might  well  be  moved  by  it  unconsciously. 
His  mother  had  told  him  the  direful  story  many 
times,  and  the  fact  that  practically  all  their  fortune 
had  been  swept  away,  not  in  honorable  warfare,  but  in 
brutal  marauding,  provoked  a  sense  of  injury  that  he 
could  not  forget,  and  which  it  was  proper,  within 
certain  limits,  he  should  always  remember. 

The  New  England  recalcitrants  were  ever  dis 
posed  to  speak  of  our  second  quarrel  with  Great 
Britain  as  "  Mr.  Madison's  War."  In  truth  it  was 
Henry  Clay's.  'He  forced  the  issue,  and  he  signed, 
most  unwillingly,  the  treaty  of  peace  which,  on  its 
face,  amounted  only  to  a  cessation  of  hostilities^ 

64 


WAR-HAWK       : 

When  Congress  met  in  December,  1811,  in  defi 
ance  of  all  precedent,  Clay  was  elected  Speaker  by  a 
large  majority.  Many  of  the  older  members  who  had 
been  so  long  in  control  either  failed  of  re-election 
or  were  rudely  shoved  aside.  The  new  members 
took  control  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  declaring 
war  on  Great  Britain.  These  youngsters,  known 
as  the  War-Hawks,  were  recklessly  defiant.  They 
were  sick  of  the  devious  paths  of  diplomacy  which 
had  brought  the  country  into  contempt,  and  consid 
ered  war  the  only  medium  by  which  national  honor 
could  be  restored.  There  was  some  ground  for  this 
position.  Madison  had  made  a  mess  of  negotiations 
and  had  been  cleverly  caught  in  Napoleon's  net 

There  is  no  more  distressing  chapter  in  our  diplo 
matic  history  than  that  stretching  from  1 806  to  1812. 
Mn  the  war  between  Napoleon  and  the  various 
coalitions  against  him  American  commerce  was 
ground  between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones. 
Great  Britain  declared  a  blockade  of  practically  all 
the  European  coast  along  the  Atlantic.  Napo 
leon  retorted  with  a  blockade  of  Great  Britain.  As 
both  of  these  were  largely  paper  blockades,  a  series 
of  reprisals  was  entered  upon.  As  each  nation 
wanted  to  starve  the  other  out,  it  was  impossible 
to  permit  unrestricted  neutral  commerce,  even  of 
articles  not  contraband.  By  Orders  in  Council,  Great 
Britain  forbade  trade  with  the  Continent  unless  the 
goods  were  landed  in  Great  Britain  and  paid  duty, 
on  pain  of  forfeiture  of  vessel  and  goods.  Napo 
leon  retorted  by  the  decrees  of  Milan,  Berlin,  and 
Rambouillet,  which  ordered  any  vessel  complying 
with  the  British  Orders  to  be  sequestrated.  As 
the  Americans  had  most  of  the  carrying  trade, 
many  foreign  vessels  assuming  our  flag,  this  was  a 
case  of  being  "  damned  if  you  do  and  damned  if 
you  don't."  If  the  blockade  had  been  effective,  or 
s  65 


THE  TRUE   HENRY   CLAY. 

the  navies  of  each  large  enough  to  carry  out  their 
decrees,  there  would  soon  have  been  no  American 
ships.  Many  were  seized,  but  the  chance  of  profit 
was  so  large  that  many  vessels  took  the  risk  until 
the  Embargo  was  laid.  This  process  of  committing 
commercial  suicide  was  worse  than  the  seizure  of 
the  ships.  It  brought  the  country  to  the  verge  of 
ruin  before  it  was  repealed  It  was  followed  by  a 
Non-intercourse  act  forbidding  trade  with  Great 
Britain  or  France,  and  this  was  little  better  than  the 
Embargo,  as  all  Europe  was  practically  in  one  armed 
camp  or  the  other.  It  did  let  loose  some  ships  which 
engaged  in  a  dangerous  trade,  but  many  of  them 
were  promptly  seized  and  the  situation  in  some  re 
spects  was  worse  than  ever.  It  was  incumbent  on 
the  government  to  protect,  though  it  was  imprudent 
to  support  in  an  impulsive  manner.^ 

Then  the  arts  of  diplomacy  came  into  play.  Na 
poleon  used  lies  and  Great  Britain  a  club.  Erskine, 
the  British  minister,  who  had  an  American  wife, 
made  a  nice  mess  of  it.  He  came  over  to  make  a 
new  treaty,  and  was  so  impressed  with  the  American 
contention  that,  in  violation  of  his  instructions,  he 
declared  the  Orders  in  Council  revoked.  Madison 
issued  a  proclamation  reopening  trade  with  Great 
Britain.  Great  was  the  joy  in  the  land  and  intense 
was  the  indignation  which  followed  when  the  British 
ministry  promptly  disavowed  Erskine,  called  him 
home,  and  announced  the  Orders  still  in  force.  Then 
came  Francis  James  Jackson,  who  had  signalized 
himself  in  diplomacy  by  burning  Copenhagen.  In 
a  few  weeks  he  called  Madison  a  liar  and  deceiver, 
and  got  his  conge.  Foster,  who  succeeded  him, 
came  prepared  to  atone  for  the  "Chesapeake" 
outrage,  but  was  adamant  on  the  subject  of  the 
Orders  in  Council.  Then  the  situation  was  made 
all  the  worse  by  the  Indian  uprising  under  Tecum- 

66 


WAR-HAWK 

seh  in  the  West,  which  was  largely  at  the  instiga 
tion  and  by  the  aid  of  British  officers  in  Canada. 
Harrison's  victory  at  the  Tippecanoe  wiped  out  the 
Indian  confederacy,  but  it  fanned  anew  the  flame  of 
resentment  against  Great  Britain. 

vlJie  situation  was  now  made  more  complicated 
by  the  affair  of  the  "  Little  Belt."  Captain  Rodgers, 
of  the  United  States  frigate  "  President,"  started  on  a 
cruise  from  the  Chesapeake,  when  she  was  overhauled 
by  the  "  Little  Belt,"  a  British  sloop-of-war,  under 
the  impression  that  the  stranger  was  her  consort,  the 
"  Guerriere."  Her  action  in  following  him  was  so 
mysterious  that  Rodgers,  smarting  under  recollec 
tion  of  the  "  Chesapeake"  affair,  made  ready  to  fight, 
and  when  the  sloop  started  to  sail  away,  Rodgers 
followed  and  nearly  blew  her  out  of  the  water.  This 
put  the  "Chesapeake"  affair  to  sleep  and  made  Fos 
ter's  negotiations  difficult,  especially  as  he  complained 
about  our  seizure  of  West  Florida.  JJ 

Napoleon's  devious  policy  was  to  declare  his  de 
crees  revoked  and  to  continue  their  enforcement. 
Supposing  them  actually  revoked,  our  vessels  flocked 
to  France  and  were  promptly  seized  and  sold  for  the 
benefit  of  the  treasury,  which  needed  funds  for  the 
approaching  Russian  campaign.  Thus  the  country- 
was  once  more  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea, 
and  Madison  was  in  an  agony  of  uncertainty,  due  to 
his  own  lack  of  discernment.  Had  Gallatin  been 
Secretary  of  State,  as  Madison  had  originally  wished, 
the  situation  would  never  have  reached  such  des 
perate  straits.  But  Sam  Smith,  of  Baltimore,  was 
so  potent  in  the  Senate  that  he  actually  forced 
Madison  to  appoint  his  brother  Robert  to  the  posi 
tion, — a  man  not  competent  for  a  first-class  clerkship 
in  any  of  the  departments.  After  Smith  had  nearly 
wrecked  what  little  reputation  the  administration 
retained,  Madison  wrote  all  the  papers  for  Smith  to 

67 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

sign,  and  forbade  him  to  talk  to  any  of  the  British 
ministers  on  any  official  matters  whatever^ 

This  was  bad  enough  ;  but  Madison  was  no  man 
for  the  hour,  even  after  his  eight  years'  experience 
as  Secretary  of  State  under  Jefferson.  He  constantly 
took  counsel  of  his  fears,  vacillated,  allowed  himself 
to  be  duped  by  France  and  bullied  by  Great  Britain, 
until  it  was  no  wonder  that  both  nations  held  him 
and  this  government  in  contempt ;  and  the  Ameri 
cans  of  all  parties  were  much  of  the  same  opinion. 
Clay,  while  in  the  Senate,  viewed  the  situation  with 
increasing  disgust,  and  his  election  to  the  House  was 
for  the  express  purpose  of  bringing  about  a  change. 
This  was  the  situation  which  the  young  War-Hawks 
faced,  and  they  were  ready  for  it.  Their  programme 
was  war  against  Great  Britain,  though  France  was, 
perhaps,  really  the  greater  sinner.  A  nation  more 
unprepared  for  war  has  seldom  existed.  The  army 
was  small  and  not  efficient.  There  was  not  an  officer 
of  proved  distinction  in  it.  Some  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  heroes  held  on,  but  none  of  them  had  ability, 
and  all  brought  disasters.  Harrison  and  Jackson, 
militia  officers,  had  gained  renown  as  Indian  fighters, 
but  this  was  to  be  no  war  with  aborigines.  The 
militia  was  ineffective.  The  navy  was  small,  but 
efficient,  thanks  to  the  troubles  in  the  Mediterranean. 
It  would  have  been  much  more  effective  had  not 
Jefferson  squandered  his  appropriations  on  a  lot  of 
toy  gunboats  which,  in  his  speculative  philosophy, 
seemed  monsters  of  destructiveness,  but  which  were 
the  laughing-stock  of  the  military  men  of  the  whole 
world. 

The  War-Hawks,  under  Clay's  lead,  knew  all  this ; 
they  knew  how  the  Embargo  and  Non-intercourse 
acts  had  not  only  impoverished  the  country,  but  had 
aroused  political  discussions  which  boded  ill  for  the 
Union.  To  their  credit  be  it  said,  they  had  the 

68 


THE    PHCENIX    HOTEL,    LEXINGTON 

(This  famous  hostelry  was  for  many  years  Whig  political'  head-quarters 
in  Kentucky.  Here  Clay  dined  frequently,  and  his  farm  supplied  produce 
for  its  table.  From  a  photograph  taken  about  1854.) 


WAR-HAWK 

courage  of  their  convictions.  Owing  in  part  to 
foreign  ruthlessness  and  in  part  to  American  impa 
tience,  the  time  had  come  to  decide  whether  the 
nation  should  disclaim  and  abandon  its  position  as 
an  independent  nation  or  fight  for  its  sovereignty. 
It  ought  not  to  have  come  to  this,  but  it  had,  and 
the  answer  was  war. 

^Tln  this  day  the  historian  can  read  the  accounts  of 
that  era  and  figure  out  exactly  how  enlarged  states 
manship  could  have  prevented  war.  True  enough; 
but  we  had  too  little  of  that  commodity.  Also,  one 
can  see  now  very  clearly  how  essential  to  the  ulti 
mate  good  of  Europe  and  America  was  the  war 
which  Great  Britain  was  waging  against  Napoleon. 
British  statesmen  pointed  out  that  the  affair  was  as 
much  our  concern  as  theirs  ;  that  if  Napoleon  could 
once  establish  absolutely  his  Continental  system,  and 
defeat  Great  Britain,  he  would  go  on  to  accomplish 
his  dreams  of  universal  empire,  and  America  would 
soon  pay  the  penalty  for  her  refusal  to  enter  the 
contest  against  him. 

No  doubt  there  was  much  truth  in  this  position, 
but  it  was  not  equally  true  that  this  nation  was  to  be 
used  as  a  club  without  its  own  consent.  British 
statesmen  seemed  to  think  that  because  of  their 
leadership  in  the  war  against  Napoleon  they  had  per 
mission  to  do  as  they  pleased,  irrespective  of  the 
rights  of  others.  Had  British  diplomacy  been  gen 
erous,  or  even  just,  and  had  American  statesman 
ship  been  above  the  ostrich  type,  no  war  would 
have  taken  place ;  but  it  had  come  to  this  extremity, 
that  we  must  fight  or  acknowledge  British  suze 
rainty. 

The  people  of  the  country  were  willing  to  fight, 
knowing  little  of  the  existing  unpreparedness. 
Though,  as  a  rule,  Congress  had  followed  the 
administration,  a  stinging  rebuke  was  administered 

69 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

in  1810,  when  nearly  one-half  the  members  were  left 
at  home.  The  voice  of  the  people  was  for  war,  and 
Clay  was  the  popular  leader. 

Clay's  selection  for  Speaker  was  with  the  avowed 
purpose  of  bracing  up  the  administration  and  forcing 
the  issue.  The  new  leaders  of  prominence  were  (be 
sides  Clay)  John  C.  Calhoun,  Felix  Grundy,  Langdon 
Cheves,  and  William  Lowndes,  men  destined  to  many 
years  of  public  service.  The  committees  were  so 
arranged  as  to  carry  out  the  war  programme,  and, 
in  addition,  Clay  violated  precedent  by  frequently 
leaving  the  chair  and  speaking  on  the  floor.  The 
debate  soon  opened  on  a  question  of  increasing  the 
regular  army  to  a  war  footing.  John  Randolph  of 
Roanoke,  who  had  been  relegated  to  the  rear,  was 
one  of  two  who  spoke  against  war,  and  only  a 
miserable  faction  voted  against  the  bill.  Clay  had 
made  one  of  his  famous  speeches,  in  which  he  closed 
with  a  ringing  demand  for  "free  trade  and  sailors' 
rights."  Contemporaries  say  (as  usual)  that  it  was 
one  of  his  greatest  efforts,  stirring  his  auditors  to 
unbounded  enthusiasm.  To-day  it  is  barely  readable, 
and  one  can  imagine  how  remarkable  must  have  been 
Clay's  personal  magnetism  to  have  made  such  a 
seemingly  feeble  intellectual  effort  so  effective. 

The  War-Hawks  were  now  in  fine  feather,  and  laid 
down  the  law  to  Madison  as  to  what  he  must  do  and 
must  not  do  if  he  wanted  a  renomination.  Candi 
dates  for  the  Presidency  were  then  nominated  by  the 
party  members  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  in 
caucus,  and  the  War-Hawks  had  the  whip-hand. 
There  is  some  contemporary  evidence  to  the  effect 
that  a  written  bargain  pledging  war  was  made  with 
Madison,  one  member  of  Congress  asserting  that  he 
had  seen  the  document  This  the  War-Hawks  de 
nied,  probably  with  truth.  Madison  was  a  timid 
man  and  only  needed  a  master,  and  in  Clay  he 

70 


WAR-HAWK 

found  him.  No  written  bargain  was  necessary. 
From  the  vote  on  the  army  bill,  in  January,  1812, 
it  was  known  that  the  administration  was  merely 
trying  to  get  its  house  in  order  for  the  declaration 
of  war. 

And  now  the  unexpected  happened.  The  army 
bill  exhausted  the  patriotism  of  a  large  number  of 
members.  When  Gallatin,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
showed  that  there  would  be  enormous  deficits  for 
three  years,  outside  of  any  war  expenses,  and  asked 
for  heavy  new  taxes  and  large  loans,  many  members 
took  fright,  to  the  indignation  of  Clay  and  the  other 
leaders.  The  new  taxes  bore  heavily  on  the  already 
impoverished  people,  while  new  loans  were  not  only 
objectionable,  but  there  was  small  chance  of  get 
ting  them  afloat.  The  National  Bank  was  dissolved, 
specie  was  scarce,  and  trade  at  a  low  ebb.  A  bill 
to  borrow  ten  million  dollars  at  six  per  cent,  passed 
easily,  but  the  new  taxes  nearly  ruined  the  war  party, 
which  increased  duties  one  hundred  per  cent,  im 
posed  new  internal  taxes,  and  a  direct  tax  of  three 
million  dollars.  The  new  tax  bill  finally  passed,  but 
not  until  the  House  had  absolutely  refused  to  increase 
the  navy  in  any  way,  against  Clay's  bitter  opposition, 
had  refused  to  insert  in  a  bill  a  clause  authorizing 
fifty  thousand  militia,  with  power  to  send  them  to 
Canada,  and  had  refused  even  to  raise  a  provisional 
army  of  twenty  thousand  men  while  the  twenty-five 
thousand  regulars  authorized  were  being  recruited, 
a  task  that  all  knew  would  take  much  time,  if  it  was 
ever  accomplished. 

A  brief  embargo  was  laid  to  get  our  shipping 
under  cover,  and  in  June  Clay  closed  his  pro 
gramme  by  securing  the  passage  of  a  declaration  of 
war.  While  many  were  apprehensive  over  the  mili 
tary  situation,  Clay,  from  first  to  last,  was  optimistic. 
His  plan  had  been  expounded  in  Congress  over  and 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

over  again.  It  was  to  march  on  Canada  and  dictate 
peace  at  Quebec  or  Halifax,  with  the  unmentioned 
understanding  that  Canada  should  be  ours.  In  his 
strategy  there  was  nothing  small.  In  his  mind's  eye 
he  had  the  lion  cowering  inside  of  a  year.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  that  at  one  time  Madison  intended 
offering  Clay  the  position  of  commander-in-chief, 
but  was  dissuaded  by  Gallatin.  This  would  have 
been  worthy  of  opera-bouffe.  Clay  had  many  merits, 
but  military  capacity  was  probably  not  one  of  these, 
and  it  was  rash  to  make  such  an  experiment  during 
war  time.  Still,  as  it  turned  out,  he  could  not  have 
done  worse  than  most  of  the  American  generals  did 
in  the  first  two  years  of  the  war ;  he  might  have 
done  much  better,  owing  to  his  personal  magnetism. 
But  an  administration  looking  for  a  general-in-chief 
in  a  man  who  never  owned  a  sword  did  not  appear 
very  formidable. 

Clay  had  now  declared  war  against  the  greatest 
naval  power  in  the  world  and  one  of  the  strongest 
in  the  field.  True,  it  was  engaged  in  a  war  with 
Napoleon,  but  the  star  of  that  buccaneer  was  rapidly 
waning,  and  went  out  much  sooner  than  was  ex 
pected  by  Clay.  To  meet  this  foe,  the  War-Hawks 
gave  the  President  a  loan  which  he  could  not  float, 
taxes  that  he  could  not  collect,  a  regular  army  he 
could  not  raise,  militia  he  could  not  use,  and  permitted 
him  to  retain  the  remnant  of  the  navy  founded  by 
John  Adams  and  everlastingly  reprobated  by  every 
anti-Federalist  It  was  well  that,  in  their  excite 
ment,  the  navy  was  not  wiped  out  entirely.  It  got 
nearly  all  the  honors  of  the  war ;  its  succession  of 
victories  made  the  nation  respected,  and  more  than 
any  other  element  brought  about  an  honorable 
peace.  To  Clay's  credit  be  it  said  that  he  was  the 
navy's  most  ardent  champion.  His  eloquence 
could  force  a  declaration  of  war,  but  it  could  not 

72 


WAR-HAWK 

wring  money  from  the  people's  pockets  nor  incite 
them  to  energetic  endeavor. 

Congress  adjourned  to  let  Madison  and  his  in 
competent  regular  generals  and  militia  colonels  fight 
it  out.  Clay  spent  the  summer  going  from  one 
mustering  camp  to  another,  encouraging  the  young 
men  to  join  the  army,  and  succeeded  admirably. 
Disasters  followed  one  another  on  land  in  quick 
succession.  Canada  was  twice  invaded,  only  to  end 
in  retreat.  Detroit  was  captured,  to  the  disgrace 
of  Hull ;  Harrison  was  checked  in  coming  to  his 
relief,  and  the  Niagara  campaign  would  have  been 
humorous  had  it  not  been  so  tragic.  Had  this 
been  the  whole  story  when  Congress  met  the  fol 
lowing  winter,  there  would  have  been  gloom  in 
deed.  It  was  the  despised  navy,  which  Congress 
would  not  increase  by  so  much  as  a  cat-boat,  that 
gained  four  spectacular  victories,  which  for  the  first 
time  showed  that  the  British  navy,  ship  for  ship, 
was  not  invincible.  In  their  dismay  over  the  losses, 
Britons  forgot  the  land  campaign,  and  by  the  end  of 
the  year  there  was  a  chance  for  an  accommodation. 
Indeed,  before  the  British  ministry  heard  of  our 
declaration  of  war,  the  offensive  Orders  in  Council 
were  revoked,  but  no  guarantees  as  to  impressment 
were  given.  At  that  time  press-gangs  were  in 
festing  every  harbor  in  Great  Britain,  and  carrying 
off  with  force  and  arms  any  man  who  seemed  to 
have  the  making  of  a  sailor  in  him.  Thousands  of 
men  were  snatched  from  their  families  and  forced 
into  the  service,  and  the  English  cries  of  rage  against 
injustice  that  went  up  to  the  ministry  were  such  as 
to  make  American  complaints  seem  feeble  by  com 
parison.  The  truth  was  that  Great  Britain  needed 

^,-more  sailors  for  her  navy  than  could  be  induced  to 
volunteer  ;  hence  she  took  them  where  she  found 

v  them, — in  the  streets  of  her  own  cities  or  off  the 

73 


THE   TRUE   HENRY    CLAY 

decks  of  American  vessels.  Anything  to  beat  Na 
poleon.  All  other  considerations  were  ignored.  This 
was  brutal  policy,  though  officially  styled  necessitous 
and  heroic. 

Considering  that  for  six  years  Americans,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  through  diplomacy,  the  press, 
and  every  other  channel,  had  not  ceased  to  sound 
their  grievances  and  demand  redress,  it  is  with  aston 
ishment  we  learn  that  the  British  ministry  was 
amazed  at  the  declaration  of  war,  and  actually 
considered  the  friendship  of  America  as  one  of  its 
chief  assets.  Such  an  attitude  of  mind  may  be  an 
admirable  asset  in  fighting  a  superior  foe  amid  great 
est  discouragements  and  defeats,  but  it  is  a  striking 
commentary  on  the  way  Britons  handled  their 
diplomacy. 

When  Congress  reassembled  the  question  arose 
whether  an  accommodation  should  be  made  or  the 
war  go  on.  There  were  many  timid  souls  who  were 
for  peace,  and  among  the  bravest  there  were  some 
who  thought,  considering  that  we  had  no  army  and  no 
money,  we  had  better  get  out  of  the  situation  as  best 
we  could.  Clay  never  shone  to  better  advantage 
than  when  he  stood  up  for  a  vigorous  prosecution  of 
the  war.  Not  only  was  this  essential  to  his  own  sal 
vation,  but  it  was  really  the  only  possible  course  to 
pursue.  To  back  down  at  this  stage  of  hostilities 
would  have  made  the  situation  worse  than  ever. 
Clay  left  the  chair  and  in  one  of  the  score  or  so 
of  speeches,  each  of  which  is  called  "  the  greatest 
effort  of  his  life,"  he  brought  the  House  to  terms. 
Members  were  carried  into  an  ecstasy  of  feeling;  some 
cried,  others  shouted,  and  others  felt  hope  rising  in 
their  breasts  where  once  had  been  despair.  Clay 
suddenly  discovered  that  impressment  was,  after  all, 
the  only  real  issue,  and  as  on  this  Great  Britain  was 
adamant,  the  war  must  go  on,  and  go  on  it  did.  Once 

74 


WAR-HAWK 

more  it  was  Henry  Clay's  war,  and  its  slogan,  "  These 
are  our  credentials,"  referring  to  the  American  colors 
at  the  mast-heads  of  our  vessels,  was  Clay's. 

If  this  war  was  to  succeed,  it  would  seem  as  if  a 
magician's  wand  were  needed  to  create  everything 
necessary  for  the  occasion.  Clay  was  rash,  but  his 
cause  was  just.  As  it  turned  out,  he  was  more  nearly 
correct  than  those  who  figured  out  on  paper  that  the 
war  would  be  a  failure.  Clay  ever  believed  in  the 
plain,  common  people,  and,  except  when  a  candidate 
for  the  Presidency,  this  opinion  was  usually  justified, 
— if  not  immediately,  at  least  in  the  long  run. 

David's  chances  against  Goliath  seemed,  even  at 
the  start,  much  better  than  ours  against  Great  Britain. 
We  had  a  sling,  but  no  stones  in  it  except  a  few  ships 
from  which  nothing  was  expected  and  apparently 
nothing  demanded. 


75 


VII 

PEACE-MAKER 

THE  first  two  years  of  the  war  discouraged  nearly 
every  man  in  the  country  except  Henry  Clay.  His 
optimism  never  wavered. 

The  year  1813  was  little  more  advantageous  to  the 
American  cause  on  land  than  the  preceding  one. 
One  fiasco  followed  another.  Once  more  the  navy 
covered  itself  with  glory,  but  its  fighting  days  were 
nearly  over,  as  most  of  the  vessels  were  blockaded. 
Privateers  scoured  the  ocean  and  did  enormous 
damage  to  British  commerce,  and  marine  insurance 
rates  rose  to  a  very  high  figure.  The  British  pre 
pared  for  campaigns  from  Canada,  and  apparently 
were  going  to  sweep  the  country. 
L.At  this  juncture  the  Czar  of  Russia  was  determined 
to  destroy  his  former  ally,  Napoleon,  whose  disas 
trous  Moscow  campaign  was  just  ended.  Everything 
must  tend  in  that  direction,  and,  as  Great  Britain 
must  do  much  of  the  work,  he  was  annoyed  over 
the  war  with  America.  He  had  in  fact  broken  with 
Napoleon  on  the  matter  of  American  commerce, 
which  he  freely  admitted  to  his  Baltic  ports.  John 
Quincy  Adams,  our  minister  at  St.  Petersburg,  could 
scarce  believe  his  ears  when  he  heard  that  the  Czar 
had,  at  his  suggestion,  offered  to  mediate  in  the  mat 
ter.  Great  was  the  joy  in  America,  and  a  commission 
was  sent  to  join  Adams  in  making  peace.  Unfortu 
nately,  the  British  ministry  took  another  view  of  the 
subject,  and  the  Czar  was  told,  rather  cavalierly,  to 
keep  his  hands  off  Adams,  whose  spirits  had  been 

76 


PEACE-MAKER 

rising,  was  now  plunged  in  despair.  He  resolved  to 
approach  the  Czar  once  more  through  Roumanzoff, 
the  Secretary  of  State.  The  latter,  for  reasons  of  his 
own,  was  friendly  enough  to  the  Americans,  but  feared 
the  Czar  would  take  the  suggestion  ill  after  his  first 
repulse.  To  Adams's  astonishment,  the  Czar,  who 
was  in  the  field  in  that  campaign  which  ended  in  Elba, 
eagerly  adopted  the  suggestion,  and  once  more  ap 
proached  Great  Britain  in  terms  that  amazed  and 
distressed  the  ministry  in  London.  It  was  impossible 
to  categorically  refuse  this  second  request  from  an 
ally  and  as  impossible  to  accede.  A  middle  course 
was  decided  on.  Great  Britain  would  negotiate  for 
peace  direct,  the  idea  being  to  nurse  the  conference 
until  the  end  of  three  great  campaigns  in  America. 
Prevost  was  to  invade  New  York  from  Canada  with 
an  overwhelming  force  ;  Brock  was  to  take  Baltimore 
and  Washington  ;  and,  after  Napoleon  was  out  of  the 
way,  Packenham,  brother-in-law  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  was  to  capture  New  Orleans  with  the 
flower  of  the  British  army.  After  these  had  been 
accomplished,  peace  could  be  made  on  British  terms. 
This  was  plainly  stated  to  be  the  policy,  and  nothing 
in  history  seemed  more  likely  in  the  spring  of  1814 
than  that  it  would  be  accomplished.  ^ 

If  our  army  had  accomplished  little,  if  the  navy 
was  cooped  up,  there  was  at  least  some  intellectual 
talent  left,  and  of  all  the  victories  in  this  or  any 
other  war  we  have  waged,  the  bloodless  conquest  at 
Ghent  is  the  greatest.  The  American  commission, 
as  finally  arranged  after  bickering  and  heart-burnings, 
consisted  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  Albert  Gallatin, 
James  A.  Bayard,  Henry  Clay,  and  Jonathan  Russell. 
Aside  from  the  last  named,  these  were  all  men  of 
first-class  abilities,  and  Russell  was  by  no  means 
without  merit  America  could  not  have  produced 
a  stronger  delegation,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  Europe 

77 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

could  have  even  matched  it.  To  meet  these  Great 
Britain  finally  sent  three  men  of  second-rate  abilities, 
Lord  Gambier,  Henry  Goulburn,  and  Dr.  William 
Adams,  all  creatures  of  Lord  Castlereagh.  These 
men  understood  that  they  were  sent  specifically  to 
prevent  a  peace,  except  on  their  own  terms,  and  to 
bring  about  a  rupture,  without  having  the  acumen  to 
understand  that  in  the  game  of  diplomacy  one  must 
play  according  to  the  rules,  and  must  manoeuvre  an 
opponent  out  of  position.  Castlereagh  did  not  ex 
pect  these  men  to  make  peace,  but  he  had  no  ex 
pectation  that  they  would  make  idiots  of  themselves 
and  a  laughing-stock  of  Great  Britain. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  commissioners  took  place 
August  8,  and  when,  after  preliminaries,  they  got 
down  to  business,  the  proposals  of  the  Britons  nearly 
closed  the  whole  incident.  Americans  had  come  to 
negotiate  for  peace  ;  the  Britons  were  prepared  only 
to  reduce  the  United  States  to  a  satrapy  of  Great 
Britain.  The  British  proposals  were,  in  brief,  that 
all  of  what  now  comprises  Michigan,  Wisconsin, 
Illinois,  most  of  Indiana,  and  a  third  of  Ohio  should 
be  set  apart  as  a  neutral  Indian  country ;  Great 
Britain  to  take  most  of  Northern  New  York  and 
New  England,  all  of  the  south  bank  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  the  Niagara,  the  Americans  to  build 
no  forts  on  the  lakes  and  keep  no  navy  there.  The 
Americans  were  to  give  up  their  rights  to  the  inshore 
fisheries.  The  Britons  would  then  be  willing  to  dis 
cuss  other  matters. 

When  these  proposals  were  received  by  the 
Americans,  the  hearts  of  four  of  them  sank.  Be 
lieving  that  the  British  commissioners  had  definite 
and  probably  unchangeable  instructions,  they  looked 
on  the  demands  as  simply  an  easy  way  of  breaking 
off  negotiations.  Here  Clay's  keen  perceptions 
stood  him  in  good  stead.  He  alone  maintained 

78 


PEACE-MAKER 

that  the  demands  were  bluster,  that  Great  Britain 
would  not  adhere  to  them,  and  that  the  policy  to 
pursue  was  to  outbrag  them,  or,  as  we  should  say 
in  these  days,  outbluff  them.  As  a  fact,  Clay  cor 
rectly  divined  the  situation.  It  was  not  a  promising 
outlook,  but  Clay's  programme  or  something  akin  to  it 
was  the  only  one  possible.  Adams  was  willing  to 
break  off  the  whole  negotiation  on  the  Indian  boun 
dary,  but  no  one  supported  him.  Adams  had  neither 
a  sense  of  humor  nor  a  wide  knowledge  of  human 
nature.  He  took  everything  seriously,  and  believed 
that  too  often  men  were  as  immovable  in  purpose 
as  he. 

The  American  commissioners  informed  their  op 
ponents  that  they  had  no  instructions  about  the 
Indians,  but  had  sent  for  them,  and  in  the  mean  time 
were  ready  to  discuss  other  points.  The  Americans 
had  been  ordered  to  make  no  treaty  which  did  not 
include  distinct  disavowal  by  Great  Britain  of  the 
right  of  impressment  of  American  seamen.  To 
Clay  such  instructions  were  not  necessary.  He 
had  twice  brought  on  the  war  by  his  lurid  speeches 
concerning  the  woes  of  the  American  sailor,  forced 
to  fight  in  British  ships  against  enemies  who  did 
not  concern  him.  Clay  announced  over  and  over 
that  giving  up  impressment  was  the  sine  qua  non  of 
a  treaty. 

Pending  the  arrival  of  fresh  instructions,  the 
American  commissioners,  little  expecting  an  accom 
modation,  enjoyed  themselves  as  best  they  could. 
There  were  many  private  dinners,  and  a  few  public 
ones  were  tendered  them.  These  Clay  enjoyed 
hugely,  as  he  was  fond  of  good  living,  and  made 
many  friends.  Later  he  had  a  quarrel  with  Gal- 
latin,  who  had  neglected  to  inform  Clay  of  an  in 
vitation  tendered  the  commission,  and  he  alone  was 
absent.  Gallatin  apologized,  but  it  did  not  entirely 

79 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

soothe  Clay's  ruffled  temper,  who  was  not  yet  certain 
that  the  slight  was  not  intended.  He  considered 
himself,  by  his  position  and  experience,  the  real 
representative  of  the  American  people.  Adams  was 
nominally  at  the  head  of  the  commission,  and  felt 
his  immense  superiority  over  the  others,  both  because 
of  his  larger  experience  in  diplomacy  and  his  efforts 
in  bringing  about  the  meeting.  At  the  start  he 
attempted  to  take  matters  into  his  own  hands,  and 
was  grieved  to  find  that  the  despatches  which  he 
prepared  with  great  pains  were  riddled  and  muti 
lated  by  his  associates,  and  especially  by  Clay. 
Adams  had  no  love  for  Clay,  underestimated  him, 
and  was  temperamentally  so  constituted  that  he 
could  not  get  along  with  him  at  all.  He  took  all  of 
Clay's  criticisms  as  personal,  and  poured  out  his 
wrath  in  his  journal.  Clay,  as  the  real  author  of  the 
war,  and  as  the  popular  head  of  the  republic  by 
reason  of  his  position  as  Speaker,  did  not  propose 
to  be  pushed  aside  by  Adams  or  any  other  man 
living.  Clay  never  played  second  fiddle  in  his  life, 
and  if  diplomacy  was  new  to  him,  he  had  no  lack  of 
appreciation  of  his  ability,  and  as  it  turned  out  his 
estimate  was  just. 

Thus  we  find  him  at  the  start  objecting  to  long 
despatches,  figurative  language,  and  ambiguous 
phrases.  Clay  thought,  in  most  instances,  a  page  or 
even  half  a  page  of  writing-paper  sufficient  for  any 
communication  to  the  British  commissioners.  Adams 
liked  to  refer  to  God  and  call  heaven  to  witness,  in 
his  despatches,  how  honest  and  upright  were  Ameri 
can  demands.  Clay  insisted  on  cutting  these  out,  as 
he  said  they  were  mere  cant. 

The  negotiations  lasted  nearly  five  months,  and 
had  there  been  a  trans-Atlantic  cable  in  those  days, 
peace  would  hardly  have  been  accomplished.  De 
lays  in  communication  between  Ghent  and  Wash- 
So 


PEACE-MAKER 

ington  or  London  inured  to  America's  benefit.  The 
stupidity  of  the  British  commissioners,  in  the  brutal 
manner  of  making  their  demands  for  a  "  rectification 
of  the  Canadian  frontier"  and  the  neutral  Indian  ter 
ritory  a  pretext  for  breaking  off  negotiations,  created 
consternation  in  the  ministry,  who  saw  too  late  that 
they  had  chosen  the  wrong  instruments.  The  Indian 
question  soon  went  to  sleep,  after  Harrison's  defeat 
of  Tecumseh  at  the  Thames,  and  the  basis  was  shifted 
to  regular  diplomatic  usages.  As  to  territory,  should 
the  status  quo  ante  or  uti  possidetis  prevail?  In 
other  words,  should  each  nation  return  to  its  origi 
nal  boundaries,  or  should  each  keep  what  terri 
tory  it  had  gained.  The  British  commissioners  natu 
rally  chose  the  latter.  Ross  had  taken  Washington, 
though  losing  his  life  before  Baltimore  ;  Prevost  was 
supposedly  about  to  capture  New  York,  and  Packen- 
ham  would  surely  have  New  Orleans  before  the 
negotiations  concluded.  Uti  possidetis  was,  there 
fore,  the  British  demand,  including  a  large  portion 
of  Maine,  which  was  claimed  not  only  by  conquest, 
but  on  the  ground  that  former  boundaries  had  not 
been  properly  construed. 

All  these  pourparlers  consumed  time,  and  mean 
while  mighty  events  were  taking  place  in  America. 
The  first  the  Americans  knew  of  the  disasters  at 
Washington  was  through  a  bunch  of  newspapers 
sent  to  Clay  by  Goulburn,  accompanied  by  a  polite 
note.  Clay  later  returned  the  compliment,  with 
equally  courteous  language,  by  sending  Goulburn 
American  papers  detailing  Macdonough's  victory  on 
Lake  Champlain  and  Prevost's  disastrous  retreat 
into  Canada. 

The    news    of  Ross's  destruction  of  the  Capitol 

greatly  depressed    all  the  American  commissioners 

except  Clay.      He  still  maintained  that  the  conquest 

of  America  was  impossible,  abused  the  Massachusetts 

6  81 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

farmers  to  Adams's  face,  and  spoke  very  boastfully  of 
what  Kentuckians  would  do  if  they  ever  got  a 
chance  at  the  British.  This  disgusted  Adams,  who 
thought  Clay  a  mere  braggart.  What  he  thought 
when  he  heard  what  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  troops 
did  at  New  Orleans  he  did  not  record,  but  their 
conduct  was  a  justification  of  Clay,  even  if  his  re 
marks  savored  of  braggadocio. 

The  commissioners  went  to  the  theatre,  which 
Clay  enjoyed,  though  it  usually  bored  Adams.  The 
Puritan  made  strong  efforts  to  be  sociable.  At 
a  ball  one  night  the  party  sat  down  to  cards, — at 
the  then  popular  game  of  "  all-fours."  Clay  won 
from  Adams  a  picture  of  an  old  woman  he  had 
drawn  in  a  lottery  and  a  bouquet  from  another 
member.  This  wild  dissipation  appears  to  have  been 
too  much  for  Adams,  who  does  not  seem  to  have 
repeated  it,  nor  to  have  had  any  higher  estimate 
of  Clay.  Soon  afterwards  he  notes  in  his  journal, 
"  Mr.  Clay  is  losing  his  temper  and  growing  peevish 
and  fractious.  I,  too,  must  not  forget  to  keep  a 
constant  guard  upon  my  temper,  for  the  time  is 
evidently  approaching  when  it  will  be  wanted." 

It  certainly  was.  Clay  was  neither  peevish  nor 
fractious.  He  wanted  peace  only  with  honor.  He 
knew  the  rising  American  spirit  as  did  no  other  of 
the  commission.  He  divined  the  future  of  America 
better  than  any  of  them.  He  may  have  been  over 
confident, — overbearing,  perhaps ;  but  Clay,  though 
a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  all  but  Russell,  had,  if  not 
precisely  the  right  ideas,  those  without  which  the 
peace  would  have  been  a  farce  and  would  have 
blighted  the  American  spirit. 

Once  more  the  American  commissioners  manoeu 
vred  the  British  out  of  position,  and  the  latter 
asked  London  for  instructions.  Castlereagh  and 
Liverpool  were  now  beside  themselves  with  chagrin. 

82 


*.    £wt~     ^    *U      (~t;<^     &     t^^     «p*~r*>«^    **f* 

<„     tr+**4~***~f      *£•    &    +»~    $*""*'*"*****• 

ft.       &K^.<«+    %t*~~4±- 


DINT    NOTE   OY   COMMISSIONERS    CLAY    AND    GALLATIN    TO    LORD   CASTI.ERKAGH 

DURING   TREATY    NEGOTIATIONS   IN    LONDON,    IN    CLAY'S    HANDWRITING. 

PROBABLY    NEVER    DELIVERED 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Kentucky.     Photographed 
especially  for  this  volume.) 


PEACE-MAKER 

The  British  ministry  was  put  in  the  position  of  de 
siring  to  continue  the  war  for  conquest  only.  There 
were  two  very  serious  reasons  against  this  policy. 
One  was  that  it  would  make  the  war  popular  in 
America,  especially  in  New  England,  where  there 
had  been  hitherto  so  much  defection.  That  sec 
tion,  however,  could  not  be  expected  to  stand  mute 
and  see  its  territory  dismembered  and  its  fisheries 
taken  away.  A  hint  to  this  effect  was  conveyed  to 
the  ministry,  which  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  the 
point,  even  though  it  was  aware,  through  the  Henry 
letters,  the  speeches  in  Congress,  the  disputes  of  gov 
ernors  with  Madison,  and  the  call  for  the  Hartford 
Convention,  of  the  fact  that  dissension  existed.  What 
impressed  them  more  was  the  growing  unpopularity 
of  the  war  in  Great  Britain.  Napoleon  was  now  in 
Elba  and  the  twenty  years'  war  was  at  an  end,  save 
for  the  coming  and  unexpected  Waterloo  campaign. 
Great  Britain  had  made  tremendous  sacrifices  to  get 
rid  of  the  Corsican,  and  the  cry  of  the  nation,  bur 
dened  with  debt,  was  now  for  peace.  The  American 
war  was  known  to  be  but  an  incident  of  the  European 
campaign,  and  the  people  longed  for  a  chance  to 
recuperate.  The  waspish  Yankee  privateers  were 
infesting  the  Irish  and  English  Channels,  and,  in  the 
end,  destroyed  or  captured  nearly  two  thousand  Brit 
ish  merchant  vessels.  The  average  Briton  did  not 
care  a  rap  about  the  Maine  boundary  or  the  Niagara 
frontier. 

For  the  ministry  to  back  down  incontinently  was 
impossible,  so  the  advice  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
was  asked,  with  the  suggestion  that  he  go  to  America 
as  viceroy,  to  make  war  or  peace  as  he  saw  fit. 
The  Iron  Duke  was  not  a  man  of  ideals  or  imagi 
nation.  He  replied  that  he  would  go  if  ordered,  but 
he  could  not  see  that  British  successes  had  been  such 
as  to  make  any  claim  to  American  territory  tenable. 

83 


THE  TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

The  fact  is,  he  had  heard  of  the  astonishing  Niagara 
campaign  of  Jacob  Brown,  where,  in  two  pitched  bat 
tles  and  an  assault,  the  British  were  either  fought  to  a 
stand-still  or  defeated.  Moreover,  Brock's  campaign 
had  been  a  practical  failure.  He  had  burned  the 
Capitol  with  a  ruthlessness  which  laid  him  open  to 
execration,  even  in  London,  but  had  failed  to  cap 
ture  Baltimore,  and  had  lost  his  life.  That  ended 
the  affair.  Moreover,  about  this  time  came  the  news 
of  Macdonough's  surprising  victory  on  Lake  Cham- 
plain  and  the  sudden  retreat  of  Prevost  into  Can 
ada.  On  the  whole,  it  seemed  likely  that  if  the  uti 
possidetis  were  set  up,  the  Americans  would  be  the 
gainers.  Accordingly,  the  status  quo  ante  was  ac 
cepted,  and  now  for  the  first  time  it  seemed  to  the 
Americans  that  an  honorable  peace  was  in  sight. 

The  insolence  of  British  demands,  which  had  so 
long  kept  the  American  commissioners  pretty  well 
together,  now  disappeared,  and,  on  coming  to  the 
constructive  features  of  the  treaty,  they  split  up  into 
angry  factions.  Clay  would  have  hung  out  to  the 
end  for  an  express  renunciation  of  the  right  of  im 
pressment,  but  the  ground  was  swept  from  under  his 
feet  by  the  arrival  of  fresh  instructions  from  Madi 
son  to  be  silent  on  the  subject  if  the  peace  could 
only  thus  be  procured.  This  was  a  sensible  conclu 
sion.  The  end  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  had  ended 
impressment  itself,  and  it  has  never  since  been 
revived.  This  was  a  sore  disappointment  to  Clay 
when  he  thought  of  his  burning  speeches  in  favor 
of  sailors'  rights,  and  he  gave  in  with  bad  grace,  for 
he  feared  the  peace  would  be  unpopular. 

During  all  the  discussions  over  territory  Clay  was 
agitated  lest  the  Britons  should  learn  of  his  speeches 
in  favor  of  conquering  Canada.  Fortunately,  he 
escaped  this  humiliation,  and  was  obliged  to  give  up 
impressment ;  but  on  one  point  he  made  his  stand. 

84 


PEACE-MAKER 

Under  the  treaty  of  1783,  Great  Britain  had  the 
right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi,  to  which  there 
could  be  little  objection  so  long  as  the  west  bank 
was  foreign  soil.  Now  the  case  was  altered,  as  we 
owned  both  banks  and  the  mouth,  and  Clay  resolved 
to  risk  the  peace  rather  than  renew  this  right. 
Singly,  this  proposition  would  have  caused  little 
trouble,  as  the  right  was  of  small  value  to  Great 
Britain,  though  its  possible  exercise  would  be  harass 
ing  to  the  people  along  the  river,  whose  interests 
Clay  had  so  closely  at  heart  It  was,  however, 
coupled  with  another  which  was  of  vast  importance 
to  both  countries, — the  fisheries  off  Newfoundland 
and  the  Grand  Banks.  Old  John  Adams  had  al 
most  risked  the  peace  in  1783  to  gain  the  conces 
sion  to  the  inshore  fishing,  landing,  and  curing  privi 
leges,  and  had  won.  His  son,  John  Quincy,  was 
willing  to  see  a  British  flotilla  go  up  the  Mississippi 
every  day,  but  to  have  given  up  the  fishing  privileges 
would  not  only  have  angered  New  England,  but 
would  have  broken  his  father's  heart. 

From  this  time  on  there  was  a  duel  between 
Adams  and  Clay  that  brought  out  the  best  and 
worst  points  of  both.  Could  the  British  commis 
sioners  have  known  of  the  angry  American  quarrels 
going  on  in  camera,  they  would  have  been  edified 
and  strengthened  in  their  purpose.  Adams  was  the 
nominal  head  of  the  American  commission,  but  his 
temperamental  frailties  were  such  that  Gallatin  actu 
ally  took  the  lead,  and  by  his  tact  and  statesman 
ship  finally  brought  a  composition.  The  British, 
after  claiming  both  rights,  were  willing  to  set  off  one 
against  the  other.  Clay  was  willing  if  the  fisheries 
were  given  up  ;  Adams,  if  the  Mississippi  was  sacri 
ficed.  They  went  at  it  tooth  and  nail,  called  each 
other  hard  names,  until  finally  Adams  learned  to 
curb  his  tongue.  There  are  few  human  documents 

85 


THE   TRUE   HENRY    CLAY 

so  interesting  to  Americans  as  the  diary  of  John 
Quincy  Adams,  which  he  kept  his  whole  life  long 
with  religious  fidelity.  Most  of  our  information 
as  to  the  inside  workings  of  the  commission  comes 
from  this  source. 

Clay  was  ready  to  break  off  negotiations  at  this 
point,  but  Adams,  who  had  offered  to  do  so  on  the 
Indian  question  and  was  overruled,  was  now  for  an  ac 
commodation,  if  possible.  Clay  was  for  war.  In 
his  diary,  Adams  writes  that  Clay  announced  boldly 
that  "he  had  no  doubt  but  three  years  more  of 
war  would  make  us  a  warlike  people,  and  that  then 
we  should  come  out  of  the  war  with  honor.  Whereas, 
at  present,  even  upon  the  best  terms  we  could 
possibly  obtain,  we  shall  have  only  a  half-formed 
army,  and  half  retrieve  our  military  reputation.  He 
was  for  playing  brag  with  the  British  plenipoten 
tiaries  ;  they  had  been  playing  brag  with  us  through 
out  the  whole  negotiation  ;  he  thought  it  was  time 
for  us  to  begin  to  play  brag  with  them.  He  asked 
me  if  I  knew  how  to  play  brag.  I  had  forgotten 
how.  He  said  the  art  of  it  was  to  beat  your  adver 
sary  by  holding  your  hand,  with  a  solemn  and  con 
fident  phiz,  and  outbragging  him.  He  appealed  to 
Mr.  Bayard  if  it  was  not. 

"'Ay,'  said  Mr.  Bayard,  'but  you  may  lose  the 
game  by  bragging  until  the  adversary  sees  the  weak 
ness  of  your  hand.'  And  Mr.  Bayard  added  to  me, 
— '  Mr.  Clay  is  for  bragging  a  million  against  a 
cent' " 

This  is  an  interesting  dissertation  not  only  on 
the  situation  then  in  hand,  but  upon  the  early  form 
of  poker  (then  called  brag),  played  with  but  three 
cards  in  the  hand  and  one  face  up  on  the  table.  It 
was  this  game  which  cost  Clay  fortunes, — as  much, 
it  is  said,  as  eight  thousand  dollars  in  a  single  night. 
Twice  in  his  diary,  at  Ghent,  does  Adams  complain 

86 


PEACE-MAKER 

that  Clay  was  still  playing  cards  in  the  early  morn 
ing  when  the  diarist  arose  to  perform  his  daily  round 
of  appointed  tasks,  according  to  the  Puritan  schedule 
he  had  established  for  himself  in  youth. 

Clay  was  wrong  in  thinking  that  brag  alone  would 
suit  the  present  case.  Russell  was  with  him,  but  at 
first  the  three  others  were  against  them.  Fortunately, 
the  British  commissioners  did  not  accept  the  offer, 
and  the  suggestion  was  made  to  be  silent  on  both 
topics ;  then  Clay  announced  that  he  would  not  sign 
the  treaty  if  the  Mississippi  were  left  open  to  Great 
Britain.  This  brought  Bayard  to  his  side,  who 
wanted  to  avoid  a  rupture.  Finally,  the  patience 
of  all,  even  including  the  agreeable  Gallatin,  became 
exhausted  because  Clay  seemed  to  be  backing  and 
filling  to  care  more  for  his  reputation  in  Kentucky 
than  for  peace.  Gallatin  was  at  last  obliged  to  re 
buke  Clay  for  trifling  with  serious  matters. 

In  the  end  peace  was  brought  about  by  omitting 
both  the  fisheries  and  the  Mississippi,  leaving  them 
to  future  negotiations.  Even  this  did  not  please 
Clay,  whom  Adams  reports  as  saying  that  they  "had 
made  a  damned  bad  treaty,  and  he  did  not  know 
whether  he  would  sign  or  not."  If  he  could  have 
known  the  state  of  feeling  at  home,  he  would  not 
for  a  moment  have  hesitated  to  sign.  The  adminis 
tration  was  in  dire  straits,  and  the  peace  treaty  came 
to  it  in  the  nature  of  a  reprieve. 

As  signed,  the  treaty  was  little  more  than  a  cessa 
tion  of  hostilities.  Some  of  the  issues  were  already 
dead  and  the  rest  were  left  to  time  to  settle,  and, 
fortunately,  all  were  eventually  decided  in  our  favor. 
i  Clay's  part  in  making  the  treaty  was  important.  He 
was  bold  when  others  were  fearful,  and  his  contuma- 
ciousness  over  the  Mississippi  was  in  the  end  a  great 
gain. 

After  the  signing,  an  angry  and  undignified  quarrel 
87 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

took  place  between  Clay  and  Adams  as  to  the 
custodianship  of  the  papers.  Adams,  as  head  of  the 
commission,  claimed  the  right;  but  Clay  got  an 
order  from  a  majority  of  the  commission  to  turn 
them  over  to  him,  which  Adams  refused.  In  a  wordy 
duel,  Clay  gave  Adams  a  piece  of  his  mind  which 
long  rankled  in  the  latter's  breast.  Each  seemed 
anxious  to  get  credit  out  of  the  matter,  but  in  the 
end  it  amounted  to  nothing,  as  both  stayed  in 
Europe  for  some  time.  Clay  remained  to  help 
negotiate  a  commercial  treaty  with  Great  Britain. 
While  there  he  refused  to  meet  the  Prince  Regent 
unless  officially  called  upon  to  do  so, — an  exhibition 
of  democracy  and  boorishness  more  in  vogue  then 
than  now. 

While  on  a  visit  to  Paris  he  met  Madame  de  Stael, 
who  charmed  him  with  her  wit  and  her  assurances 
that  she  had  worked  in  London  for  the  American 
cause.  The  matter  of  the  suggested  appointment 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  to  command  came  up, 
and  Clay  replied  that  he  was  sorry  it  had  not  been 
gazetted,  on  the  ground  that  if  the  Duke  had  won 
in  the  field,  there  could  have  been  no  shame  in 
succumbing  to  such  an  adversary ;  while,  if  the 
Americans  had  won,  the  glory  would  have  been  so 
much  the  greater.  Madame  de  Stael  is  said  to  have 
been  greatly  pleased  over  this  incident,  which  she 
later  related  to  the  Duke. 

When  Clay  got  home  and  found  how  popular  the 
peace  was,  he  was  quite  willing  to  share  in  the  glory, 
though  maintaining,  over  modestly,  that  it  was  a  very 
simple  affair  after  all, — which  it  wasn't. 

A  laughable  incident  illumines  the  Kentucky  view 
of  the  peace  proceedings.  From  time  to  time  the 
government  published  despatches  in  which  Clay's 
demands  on  certain  positions  as  a  sine  qua  non  were 
frequent  This  mystified  the  unlettered  Kentuck- 

88 


PEACE-MAKER 

ians,  until  one  of  them  suddenly  discovered  that 
sine,  qua,  and  non  were  three  islands  in  the 
Passamaquoddy  Bay.  "And  Hennery  Clay  will 
never  give  'em  up,  if  we  fight  forever."  This  pop 
ular  notion  saved  much  of  that  reputation  which 
Clay  feared  would  be  destroyed  by  the  peace. 

Clay  was  a  good  man  of  business  in  this  matter. 
He  kept  a  close  account  of  expenses  outside  those 
paid  by  the  commission,  and  among  the  bills  audited 
is  one  for  twenty-five  dollars,  paid  for  newspapers 
while  abroad.  He  also  put  in  a  claim  for  half  an 
outfit  while  in  London,  of  which  we  shall  hear 
later. 


VIII 

THE   SPEAKER 

IN  the  winter  of  1 847-8  Clay  was  in  Washington 
attending  to  some  Supreme  Court  business,  and  went 
into  the  House  chamber  one  day  to  listen  to  the 
proceedings,  very  shortly  after  Winthrop  had  been 
chosen  Speaker.  He  looked  on  attentively  for  some 
time,  and  later  met  Winthrop  in  the  corridor  and 
said,  in  a  very  kindly  way,  "I  have  just  one  remark 
to  make  :  when  you  have  a  case  to  decide,  do  it 
quickly  and  stop  there."  The  young  Speaker  appre 
ciated  the  advice  all  the  more  because  he  saw  that 
Clay  felt  that  he  needed  it. 

This  was  the  principle  on  which  Clay  acted 
throughout  his  occupancy  of  the  chair.  He  never 
hesitated  a  moment,  and  it  has  not  been  found  that 
a  single  one  of  his  decisions  was  overruled.  To-day 
the  decisions  he  made  are  accepted  as  authority. 
He  was  always  courteous  even  to  his  bitterest  oppo 
nents,  and  his  non-partisanship  as  presiding  officer 
was  as  great  as  that  of  the  Speaker  of  the  British 
House  of  Commons.  Even  in  making  up  commit 
tees  he  was  felt  to  be  too  liberal  to  the  opposition, 
but  Clay  was  firm  in  his  contention  that  the  best  way 
to  accomplish  anything  was  to  give  the  opposition 
the  best  showing  possible. 

Not  only  was  Clay  elected  Speaker  on  the  day  he 
first  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
but  he  was  elected  Speaker  at  every  Congress  wherein 
he  sat,  though  twice  he  resigned  the  office  :  once 
when  he  went  to  Ghent  and  once  when  he  found  it 

90 


THE   SPEAKER 

impossible  to  attend  a  short  session.  He  was  absent 
during  the  session  of  1821-3,  but  no  sooner  did  he 
return  than  the  Speakership  was  his. 

Up  to  his  time  the  Speaker  had  seldom  engaged 
in  debate  upon  the  floor.  There  was  no  law  against 
it,  but  it  had  seldom  been  done.  Clay,  however, 
indulged  freely  in  debate,  and  actually  led  the  House 
in  important  legislation.  fMost  of  this  was  when  the 
House  was  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  and  he  was 
not  occupying  the  chair.  The  House  sat  much 
more  in  this  manner  then  than  now,  when  there  are 
so  many  standing  committees  which  have  charge  of 
formulating  legislation*)  We  have  seen  how  he  led 
the  debate  in  the  matter  of  war  and  war  prepara 
tions.  His  leadership  was  needed,  and  without  it  the 
House  would  have  floundered  badly.  iAs  it  was,  he 
could  not  get  the  men,  the  money,  or  the  ships  he 
wanted  ;  but  he  kept  a  pretty  tight  rein,  and  as  his 
mastery  grew  he  became  imperious.  It  was  hard  for 
him  to  brook  opposition,  and  he  never  forgave  Josiah 
Quincy  for  calling  him,  during  the  debates  on  the 
war,  "a  statesman  with  pin-feathers  not  yet  grown." 
This  was  an  unjust  thrust,  for  if  there  was  any  full- 
fledged  statesman  abroad  at  that  time,  it  was  Clay. 
It  is  true  that  his  policy  may  be  open  to  criticism, 
but  not  his  method.  He  was  the  one  man  who 
could  silence  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  and  the 
old  man  never  forgot  nor  forgave  it,  and  the  end  of 
their  contention  was  the  duel  elsewhere  narrated. 

At  this  time  the  House  was  a  changing  and 
changeable  body.  Most  of  the  older  members  who 
had  sat  almost  from  the  beginning  had  departed  and 
the  newer  element  was  in  control  and  needed  Clay's 
masterful  hand.  >  It  was  a  peculiarity  of  Clay  that 
he  could  always  manage  affairs  for  any  one  else  suc 
cessfully,  while  he  embarrassed  his  own.  He  not 
only  dominated  the  House,  but  he  practically  domi- 

91 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

nated  the  administration  for  years ;  and  it  was  this 
sense  of  power,  derived  from  unfailing  success,  that 
led  him  very  properly  to  aspire  to  the  Presidency. 

We  have  seen  how  his  first  appearance  in  Con 
gress  was  as  a  fledgling  Senator  when  he  worked  for 
the  Alexandria  bridge.  In  his  other  brief  term 
he  further  expanded  his  views  only  to  meet  with 
opposition.  The  Cumberland  Road,  or  National 
Turnpike,  as  it  was  more  commonly  called,  was  the 
first  step  in  this  direction.  It  was  a  stone  road  from 
Cumberland,  Maryland,  to  Wheeling,  (West)  Vir 
ginia,  and  was  projected  and  partially  constructed 
through  Ohio  and  Indiana,  but  at  last  was  nipped  by 
vetoes  from  the  Virginia  Presidents  who  made  a 
fetich  of  the  Constitution.  This  road  had  been 
exceedingly  serviceable  in  connecting  the  East 
with  the  West  at  a  time  when  private  enterprise 
could  not  afford  such  an  outlay.  Jefferson  at  first 
favored  it  on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  military  road, 
and  then  had  his  doubts.  Madison  disapproved 
of  it,  and  Monroe  abandoned  it,  so  that  finally  it 
was  turned  over  to  the  States  through  which  it 
ran.  Clay  was  its  ardent  champion.  He  took  a 
prophetic  view  of  the  country,  and  in  one  of  his 
speeches  called  attention  to  fact  that  at  some  future 
day  the  country  would  have  a  hundred  million 
inhabitants,  and  internal  improvements  of  the  sort, 
by  national  aid,  would  be  absolutely  necessary  and 
that  the  people  would  find  them  constitutional.  He 
made  the  vital  point  that  if  such  expenditures  would 
be  proper  a  century  hence  they  were  proper  now. 
The  plan  of  a  constitutional  amendment  to  pro 
vide  for  them  did  not  commend  itself  to  him,  be 
cause  he  knew  the  jealousies  were  such  that  they 
would  make  its  adoption  impossible.  He  was  for 
doing  a  right  and  proper  thing  at  once.  His  notion 
of  a  chain  of  turnpikes  from  the  Passamaquoddy  to 

92 


THE   SPEAKER 

the  Mississippi,  with  others  North  and  South,  was  in 
his  day  a  very  liberal  one,  seeing  that  this  was  before 
the  era  of  railways. 

Clay  could  usually  convince  the  House  or  the 
Senate  when  he  sat  in  either  body,  but  not  always 
the  house  in  which  he  did  not  sit.  Most  unfortu 
nately,  some  of  his  best  plans  went  astray  by  reason 
of  Presidential  vetoes. 

In  1817  Clay,  with  the  assistance  of  Calhoun  and 
others,  secured  the  passage  of  a  bill  which  erected  a 
fund  out  of  the  bank  bonus  and  dividends  and  from 
other  sources,  to  be  permanently  for  the  extension 
of  internal  improvements,  and  it  was  hailed  as  a 
great  measure.  Unfortunately,  Madison  vetoed  it  on 
the  day  before  he  went  out  of  office,  and  Monroe 
proved  no  more  pliant,  as  he  announced  in  his  first 
message  that  he  did  not  believe  in  the  constitution 
ality  of  such  measures.  This  prevented  the  con 
struction  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal  for 
many  years,  and  when  it  was  finally  dug,  it  had  a 
formidable  rival  in  the  railway.  Indeed,  the  railway 
put  an  end  to  the  propaganda,  as  such,  and  in  later 
years  Clay  abandoned  it,  though  it  was  resurrected 
on  a  larger  scale  by  a  later  generation. 

There  are  few  of  Clay's  speeches  which  read  better 
in  these  days  than  those  he  made  on  this  topic. 
Here  he  was  on  firm  ground,  and  history  hassustained 
his  view  in  every  particular.  When  in  the  Senate 
he  had  heard  Bayard  earnestly  recommend  that 
Congress  subscribe  to  the  Delaware  and  Chesapeake 
Canal,  then  one  of  the  largest  enterprises  of  the  sort 
in  the  country.  At  this  time  Clay  thought  Bayard 
was  going  too  far,  but  soon  afterwards  he  made  a  visit 
to  Philadelphia  and  saw  the  massive  timbers  which 
were  being  hauled  overland  to  build  the  new  frigates 
which  afterwards  did  such  famous  service.  With  his 
practical  cast  of  mind,  he  sat  down  and  figured  out 

93 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

that  the  cost  to  the  government  of  transporting 
these  timbers  overland  was  equal  to  the  whole  sum 
which  it  had  been  asked  to  subscribe  to  the  canal. 
Now,  then,  asked  Clay,  does  the  Constitution  fetter 
us  so  that  we  must  actually  spend  on  a  single  opera 
tion  enough  to  build  a  canal  that  would  save  money 
for  all  time  ?  He  was  disgusted  with  the  three 
Republican  Presidents  for  their  narrow  views,  and, 
though  preserving  cordial  relations  with  them  most  of 
the  time,  did  not  hesitate  to  speak  his  mind.  In  fact, 
he  never  did  hesitate  to  speak  or  write  his  mind,  and 
it  cost  him  the  prize  he  wanted.  If,  like  the  scheming 
Van  Buren  or  the  sleek  Buchanan,  he  had  learned 
to  keep  his  ideas  to  himself  he  might  have  been 
President  and  have  left  no  greater  name  than  either 
of  them. 

He  plainly  said  that  the  sophistry  of  Jefferson,  by 
which  he  managed  to  work  out  a  right  to  build  the 
Cumberland  Road  according  to  his  own  views  of 
constitutionality,  was  to  him  inexplicable.  The  rem 
edy  was  worse  than  the  disease,  he  asserted.  As  to 
Madison,  he  simply  said  that  that  gentleman  had  flatly 
contradicted  himself  by  his  veto,  and  quoted  him  in 
one  of  his  official  recommendations  to  Congress  to 
exercise  "their  existing  powers"  to  erect  " a  com 
prehensive  system  of  roads  and  canals."  As  to 
Monroe,  then  President,  who  had  vexed  them  with 
one  of  his  vetoes,  he  declared  that  his  veto  message 
had  no  logic  nor  argument, — "  nothing  addressed 
to  the  understanding."  This  was  plain  talk  ;  the  sort 
of  language  no  other  member  of  the  party  would 
have  used  concerning  the  President  or  his  predeces 
sors.  It  shows  how  terribly  in  earnest  Clay  was.  In 
his  argument  for  the  constitutionality  of  the  improve 
ments  he  laid  down  the  principles  which  were  later 
followed  and  obtain  to  the  present  day.  Unfortu 
nately,  it  availed  nothing  for  the  time  being,  and  it 

94 


HENRY    CLAY,    SPEAKER 

(This  portrait  was  painted  in  1814  by  J.  W.  Jarvis  for  Mrs.  Clay  before  her 
husband  sailed  for  Europe.  Original  hanging'  at  Ashland.  Photographed 
especially  for  this  volume.) 


THE   SPEAKER 

was  not  until  the  younger  Adams  came  to  the 
Presidency  that  anything  was  accomplished,  and  then 
the  time  was  too  short  to  do  much  before  the  Jack- 
sonian  frost  killed  the  buds  that  had  started.  Tyler 
did  the  rest.  */ 

This  was  soon  after  the  war,  when  the  country  was 
enjoying  a  fictitious  prosperity,  and  it  was  followed 
by  a  period  of  depression  that  would  have  made 
government  aid  impossible,  even  if  there  had  been  no 
vetoes  in  the  way.  Immediately  after  the  war  there 
had  sprung  up  an  immense  activity  in  all  lines  of 
business.  Every  one  rushed  into  debt  and  all  were 
soon  to  be  rich.  State  bank  currency  was  inflated 
and  imports  were  extraordinarily  heavy.  When  the 
crash  came  there  was  an  immense  amount  of  imported 
goods  on  hand  that  no  one  could  buy  and  a  lot  of 
grain  that  could  not  be  sold.  About  this  time  there 
occurred  one  of  those  curious  popular  outbursts  of 
resentment  that  seem  laughable  now,  but  were  cer 
tainly  serious  enough  at  the  time. 

Since  the  beginning  members  of  Congress  had 
received  six  dollars  a  day  for  services  and  mileage. 
Now,  large  as  that  sum  seemed  to  the  ordinary 
farmer  or  mechanic,  it  was  not  enough  to  pay  the 
expenses  of  a  man  in  Congress  who  "lived  like  a 
gentleman," — a  situation  which  exists  at  the  very 
present.  Clay  complained  that  he  was  obliged  to 
draw  constantly  upon  his  own  resources,  though  per 
haps  his  debts  at  cards  were  greater  than  his  normal 
expenses.  In  1816  the  members  of  Congress  con 
cluded  to  increase  their  emoluments  by  making  the 
compensation  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year,  regard 
less  of  the  number  of  days  in  a  session.  The 
average  sum  drawn  before  this  was  about  nine  hun 
dred  dollars  a  year.  Even  then  there  was  some  doubt 
as  to  whether  it  would  be  well  received  ;  so  Richard 
M.  Johnson,  of  Kentucky,  the  reputed  slayer  of 

95 


THE  TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Tecumseh,  was  selected  to  present  the  measure, 
which  was  adopted,  though  not  until  another  Ken- 
tuckian,  Desha,  had  insisted  that  the  six-dollars-a- 
day  plan  was  enough.  The  bill  finally  passed  by 
fourteen  majority,  the  Senate  concurred,  and  it 
became  a  law. 

Some  members  may  have  expected  dissatisfaction 
over  the  Compensation  law,  but  surely  no  one  im 
agined  the  storm  of  indignation  that  immediately 
arose.  No  act  of  Congress  from  the  beginning, 
not  even  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  so  aroused 
the  people  to  fury.  Without  regard  to  party,  they 
fell  upon  the  members  as  they  came  home  and 
stabbed  them  full  of  wounds.  At  the  elections  which 
followed,  a  number  of  the  ablest  men  lost  their 
seats.  Never  had  there  been  such  a  hecatomb. 
Clay  and  Johnson  managed  to  retain  their  seats, 
but  by  the  closest  of  margins.  It  was  the  only  time 
in  his  life  that  Clay  was  actually  in  danger,  and 
when  he  was  obliged  to  make  personal  appeals  for 
votes  in  a  manner  that  he  would  at  all  other  times 
have  considered  undignified.  The  people  of  Ken 
tucky  were  not  much  used  to  money,  though  they 
lived  well.  To  them  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year 
for  sitting  in  Congress  and  doing  nothing  but  talk 
seemed  an  enormous  compensation,  and  their  wrath 
was  mighty  and  to  a  large  extent  prevailed.  One  of 
the  victims  who  went  down  under  the  unpopularity 
of  the  measure  said  that  every  grand-jury  was 
compelled  to  bring  in  a  presentment  against  it,  and 
that  no  man  could  be  appointed  constable  or  road 
juror  who  did  not  hold  up  his  hand  and  solemnly 
abjure  the  Compensation  law.  The  people  were  in 
a  state  of  frenzy,  and  there  must  have  been  a  psycho 
logical  reason  for  the  position  they  assumed.  It  came 
just  at  a  crucial  moment  when  the  revolutionary  spirit 
was  abroad,  and  this  was  seized  upon  as  an  excuse 

96 


THE   SPEAKER 

for  vengeance.  This  was  the  more  regrettable,  as  the 
Fourteenth  Congress  was  equal  in  ability  to  any  that 
had  ever  sat  up  to  that  time,  and  many  of  its  able 
men  retired  never  came  again  into  public  life. 

It  was  during  this  campaign  that  the  celebrated 
incident  of  Clay  and  the  hunter  occurred  which  used 
to  be  familiar  to  every  school-boy.  Clay  was  having 
a  hard  time  on  the  stump  and  needed  all  his  arts  to 
secure  votes.  At  every  gathering  he  addressed  the 
people  in  a  way  that  fitted  their  peculiarities,  and  to 
individuals  he  advanced  arguments  which  seemed  to 
be  convincing.  Meeting  an  old  hunter,  the  latter  in 
formed  Clay  that  he  had  always  supported  him  before, 
but  could  not  do  so  now  on  account  of  the  Compen 
sation  law,  which  was  all  the  more  odious  to  the 
people  because  it  applied  to  the  session  of  the  exist 
ing  Congress  and  was  familiarly  called  the  back-pay 
bill.  Clay  said  to  him, — 

"  My  friend,  have  you  a  good  rifle?" 

"Yes." 

"Did  it  ever  flash?" 

"Yes,  but  only  once." 

"What  did  you  do  with  the  rifle  when  it  flashed  ; 
throw  it  away?" 

"No,  I  picked  the  flint  and  tried  again." 

"  Have  I  ever  flashed  except  on  the  Compensation 
bill?" 

"No." 

"Well,  will  you  throw  me  away?" 

"  No,  Mr.  Clay  ;  I  will  pick  the  flint  and  try  you 
again." 

It  was  by  such  arts  as  these  that  Clay,  who  had 
before  been  elected  without  opposition,  was  finally 
chosen  by  a  small  majority. 

When  Congress  met  there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
repeal  the  law,  which  was  done  for  the  future,  but  the 
members  retained  the  money  they  had  voted  them- 
7  97 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

selves.     This  uprising  of  the  people  led  old  John 
Randolph  to  remark, — 

"  Who  would  have  believed  ?  Who  would  have  believed 
that  the  people  of  the  United  States  would  have  borne  all 
the  privations  and  losses  of  the  late  war,  and  of  the  measures 
that  led  to  it ;  that  they  would  have  quietly  regarded  a  na 
tional  debt,  swelled  to  an  amount  unknown — to  an  amount 
greater  than  the  whole  expense  of  our  seven  years'  war  ;  that 
they  would  have  seen  the  election  of  President  taken  out  of 
their  hands  (by  the  caucus)  ;  that  they  would  have  borne  with 
abuse  and  peculation  through  every  department  of  the  gov 
ernment  ;  and  that  the  great  leviathan  which  slept  under  all 
these  grievances  should  be  roused  into  action  by  the  Fifteen- 
hundred-dollar  Law?" 

And  Clay  was  obliged  to  admit  that  during  his 
entire  canvass  he  had  not  met  a  single  person  of  any 
party  or  of  any  description  who  was  not  opposed 
to  the  act.  One  would  have  thought  that  in  1874 
Congress  would  not  have  repeated  the  blunder,  but 
it  did,  with  precisely  the  same  results.  Congressmen 
now,  as  a  rule,  cannot  live  on  their  salary,  but  are 
afraid  to  vote  themselves  adequate  pay. 

Clay  was  re-elected  Speaker,  but  he  was  somewhat 
chastened  by  the  experience  and  it  was  never  re 
peated.  While  in  the  House  he  made  his  cele 
brated  speech  in  favor  of  Grecian  liberty,  which  drew 
from  Lafayette  a  commendatory  letter,  saying  that 
the  United  States  was  the  natural  and  proper  cham 
pion  of  the  Hellenes,  but  nothing  ever  came  of  the 
matter.  When  Lafayette  came  to  this  country,  Clay, 
as  Speaker,  received  him  in  a  most  felicitous  speech. 
Later  he  visited  Clay  at  Ashland  and  presented  him 
with  the  Masonic  apron  which  he  wore  when  he 
laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  Bunker  Hill  monument, 
and  it  is  still  in  possession  of  his  daughter-in-law, 
Mrs.  John  M.  Clay. 

Up  to  a  short  time  before  the  inauguration  of 
Monroe,  Clay  expected  to  be  Secretary  of  State.  He 

98 


THE   SPEAKER 

felt  that  his  services  demanded  the  position,  which 
was  looked  upon  as  bringing  with  it  the  succession. 
He  was  offered  another  portfolio,  but  declined,  and 
was  much  disgruntled  over  Adams's  preferment.  It 
had  been  customary  for  the  incoming  President  to 
be  inaugurated  in  the  House  of  Representatives ;  but 
on  this  occasion  some  row  arose,  the  use  of  the 
hall  was  refused,  and  the  inauguration  was  in  the 
open  air,  where  it  has  since  been  held.  Clay  felt  so 
badly  over  his  failure  that  he  would  not  even  attend 
the  ceremonies. 

This  is  one  of  the  occasions  when  Clay  shows  to 
little  advantage.  It  was  a  pettiness  of  which  he  was 
not  often  guilty,  and  such  incidents  can  easily  be 
magnified  beyond  their  importance.  It  was  a  sort 
of  feminine  petulance  of  which  Clay  was  doubtless 
ashamed  later,  but  it  did  not  prevent  him  from  giving 
the  administration  very  sharp  digs  on  many  occasions. 
This  was  very  human,  even  if  not  entirely  just. 

Matters  nearer  home  than  Greece  received  Clay's 
attention,  and  he  spoke  freely  on  the  subjects  at  a 
time  when  they  embarrassed  the  administration  a 
good  deal,  for  which  Clay  cared  not  a  whit.  The 
negotiations  over  Florida  had  dragged  along  until 
finally  a  treaty  had  been  made  ceding  the  peninsula 
to  this  country.  The  Senate  promptly  ratified  it ; 
but  the  King  of  Spain,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
held  back  his  approval  beyond  the  date  set  in  the 
treaty  for  the  exchange  of  ratifications.  Clay  had 
been  burning  with  indignation  ever  since  the  admin 
istration,  under  the  lead  of  Monroe  and  most  of  his 
Cabinet,  and  against  the  advice  of  Secretary  of  State 
John  Quincy  Adams,  had  fixed  our  southwest 
boundary  at  the  Sabine  and  thus  given  away  Texas. 
It  appeared  in  later  years  that  Spain  actually  offered 
more  than  this,  and  we  could  easily  have  secured  the 
line  of  the  Rio  Grande,  for  which  we  afterwards  waged 

99 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

an  unholy  war.  Monroe  had  seen  the  rising  jeal 
ousy  of  the  East,  and  especially  of  New  England,  over 
the  increase  of  territory,  and,  noting  that  there  was 
liable  to  be  trouble,  he  had  insisted  on  a  sacrifice  and 
accepted  the  Sabine,  the  present  western  boundary 
of  Louisiana,  most  of  the  Cabinet,  including  Calhoun, 
agreeing.  When  the  time  had  passed  for  exchange  of 
ratifications,  Clay  wanted  to  have  the  whole  treaty 
rejected  and  a  new  one  made  to  embrace  Texas, 
but  it  was  in  vain.  The  treaty  was  finally  ratified 
and  Texas  was  lost.  Although  slavery  was  more 
or  less  prominent  in  the  debates,  the  principal  con 
tention  of  the  older  States  was  that  it  meant  to 
them  a  loss  of  political  power.  The  New  England 
and  other  people  felt  over  the  situation  as  Europe 
has  for  centuries  over  the  balance  of  power.  There 
was  a  feeling  that  the  westward  march  would  be  so 
rapid  and  so  strong  that  the  people  beyond  the 
Alleghanies  would  soon  rule  the  country  and  the 
East  would  be  relegated  to  the  background.  The 
South  had  enjoyed  the  Presidency  from  the  begin 
ning,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  term,  and  the 
only  New  England  President  had  been  rejected  for  a 
slave-holding  Virginian  and  "an  atheist,"  so  that  in 
the  East  it  was  felt  that  a  halt  must  be  called.  We 
all  know  how  foolish  were  these  fears,  but  that  made 
them  none  the  less  real.  We  should  also  remember 
that  this  was  before  there  was  a  railway  or  telegraph 
line  in  the  land  and  when  steamboats  were  just  begin 
ning  to  plough  the  rivers.  The  West  seemed  a  vast, 
terrible,  and  distant  place  whose  domination  was 
feared  by  cultured  men  of  the  East. 

Clay  now  turned  his  attention  to  the  South,  and 
was  a  warm  advocate  and  defender  of  the  revolu 
tionary  governments  set  up  in  the  lower  Americas. 
He  spoke  with  great  candor  for  freedom  from  the 
yoke  of  Spain,  and  made  the  path  of  Monroe  anything 

100 


THE   SPEAKER 

but  pleasant,  the  more  so  because  the  latter  knew 
now  that  Clay  had  his  eye  on  the  succession.  Clay, 
however,  did  no  damage  to  the  administration,  al 
though  he  encouraged  the  revolutionists,  who  wrote 
him  many  letters  and  were  of  service  to  him  later. 

The  matter  came  to  a  climax  in  the  House  when 
the  President,  who  had  without  specific  authority 
named  a  commission  to  South  America  to  investigate 
and  see  whether  the  governments  were  stable  enough 
to  recognize,  asked  for  an  appropriation  to  cover  the 
expense.  Clay  opposed  it  on  the  ground  that  the 
nominations  had  been  unauthorized,  but  offered  an 
amendment  appropriating  a  sum  for  a  regular  minis 
ter.  There  was  something  of  the  buccaneer  about 
this  action  of  Clay.  His  position  as  Speaker  was 
one  of  vast  importance  both  at  home  and  in  a  repre 
sentative  capacity  abroad.  It  was  aimed  not  only  to 
do  the  South  Americans  good,  but  as  well  to  give  a 
drubbing  to  Adams  and  Monroe.  In  one  of  his  fiery 
speeches  for  liberty  he  woke  the  echoes  of  patriotism, 
but  did  not  succeed  in  carrying  his  purpose,  which 
would,  indeed,  have  so  embarrassed  the  administra 
tion  as  to  cause  serious  difficulty.  But  in  the  end  Clay 
had  his  way,  the  governments  were  recognized,  and 
when  Secretary  of  State  he  had  some  revenge  in  a 
quiet  fashion. 

If  at  this  time  any  one  had  told  Henry  Clay 
that  his  most  formidable  foe  in  politics  was  his 
Tennessee  neighbor,  General  Andrew  Jackson,  he 
would  have  laughed  him  to  scorn.  Nothing  was 
further  from  his  own  mind,  or  that  of  Jackson  or 
any  one  else,  than  that  the  hero  of  New  Orleans  was 
to  become  the  most  virile  force  in  politics  for  many 
years  to  come.  Clay  admired  the  old  hero  and  was 
friendly  to  him,  but  he  could  not  approve  of  the 
manner  in  which  he  had  pushed  into  Spanish  terri 
tory,  seized  Spanish  forts,  and  hanged  British  citizens. 

101 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Had  he  known  all  that  was  to  follow,  Clay  might 
or  might  not  have  held  his  peace  at  a  time  when 
there  was  no  occasion  for  him  to  say  anything. 
A  resolution  of  censure  on  Jackson's  conduct  was 
offered  in  the  House,  and  Clay  must  needs  come 
down  from  the  chair  and  deliver  a  well-tempered 
speech  in  its  favor.  He  showed  clearly  that  Jackson 
had  violated  the  laws  of  nations  and  was  likely  to 
get  us  into  trouble.  All  that  Clay  said  was  true  ; 
but,  as  it  turned  out,  the  speech  was  inexpedient, 
and  that  seems  to  be  one  of  the  reasons  why  Clay 
made  it.  Fate  ever  led  him  in  this  direction.  The 
resolution  failed. 

The  Missouri  Compromise  and  Clay's  candidacy 
for  the  Presidency  belong  to  other  chapters  of  this 
work.  When  Clay  left  Congress  in  1825  it  was 
with  a  first-class  reputation  as  a  speaker  and  legis 
lator.  He  was  easily  the  leading  man  of  the  West, 
one  of  the  most  popular  in  the  country,  and,  but  for 
the  scandal  which  followed,  known  as  the  "  Corrupt 
Bargain,"  it  is  difficult  to  see  where  Clay's  popularity 
would  have  ended.  He  was  admired  by  his  political 
foes,  respected  everywhere  for  his  talents,  and  his 
human  frailties  did  not  in  the  least  diminish  the  love 
shown  him  by  many  friends.  Indeed,  when  we  com 
pare,  either  at  this  time  or  at  a  later  date,  the  austere 
Adams,  who  had  all  the  virtues,  with  Clay,  who  was 
latitudinarian  in  so  many  respects,  it  is  evident  that 
human  beings,  while  they  may  admire  perfection  in 
the  abstract,  care  much  more  for  the  full-blooded, 
noble-hearted  man  with  failings  than  for  the  an 
chorite.  And  from  the  effect  of  these  weaknesses 
Clay  was  able  to  recover  with  remarkable  ease  at  all 
times. 

On  a  certain  occasion  he  had  been  up  all  night 
playing  cards  and  doubtless  indulging  rather  freely 
in  liquor.  A  friend  said  to  him,  "  How  can  you, 


THE   SPEAKER 

under  the  circumstances,  preside  over  the  House 
to-day?" 

"  Come  and  see,"  said  Clay. 

He  went,  and  with  astonishment  saw  Clay  preside 
with  perfect  composure,  great  dignity,  and  much 
parliamentary  skill  over  a  session  that  was  note 
worthy  for  the  amount  of  business  transacted. 

The  fact  that  Clay  could  do  such  things  was 
remarkable,  but  it  was  hardly  well  for  his  physical 
and  moral  make-up  that  it  was  possible.  It  made 
him  too  self-confident,  too  daring. 


103 


IX 

CLAY   AS    A    DUELLIST 

IN  spite  of  his  singularly  affable  manners,  Clay  was 
a  good  deal  of  a  fighter.  Thrice  he  was  involved  in 
"  affairs  of  honor,"  in  which,  fortunately,  the  mini 
mum  amount  of  blood  was  spilled.  In  addition,  he 
had  several  encounters  with  his  fists,  and  was  "quick 
in  choler"  at  all  times.  This  was  the  more  repre 
hensible  in  him  because  he  fully  appreciated  the 
folly  of  such  conduct,  moralized  on  it  in  private  and 
public,  and  fought  again  when  an  accommodation 
was  possible.  His  conduct  was  due  not  so  much  to 
the  "imperious  custom"  of  the  time  as  to  his  own 
temperament.  His  warm  blood  revolted  at  insult, 
actual  or  fancied,  and  he  was  ever  ready  to  give 
"the  satisfaction  usually  accorded  gentlemen." 

In  these  days  we  clearly  appreciate  how  absurd 
was  "  the  code"  and  the  system  which  underlay  it. 
If  a  man  wrongs  me  to  the  extent  that  his  life  is 
properly  forfeit,  I  now  kill  him  without  giving  the 
outlaw  a  chance.  Under  the  old  system,  the  most 
detestable  villain  had  an  equal  chance  (often  a  better) 
with  the  innocent  and  aggrieved.  Virginians  and 
Carolinians  were  particularly  devoted  to  this  rule  of 
barbarism,  and  no  man  could  expect  to  be  respected, 
especially  in  the  West,  if  he  declined  "satisfaction" 
on  every  proffered  occasion. 

The  first  instance  of  Clay's  appearance  on  "the 
field  of  honor"  was  at  twenty-six,  while  a  member 
of  the  Kentucky  Legislature,  and  grew  out  of  his 
chivalry  in  the  Bush  case.  Colonel  Joseph  Hamilton 

104 


CLAY   AS   A   DUELLIST 

Daviess  having  assaulted  Bush,  a  Frankfort  tavern- 
keeper,  no  one  would  assume  his  cause  because  the 
aggressor  was  the  District  Attorney  of  the  Federal 
Court,  and  a  power  in  the  community.  Clay  took  up 
the  cause  of  Bush.  When  defending  the  poor,  the 
friendless,  and  the  oppressed,  Clay  was  always  at  his 
best.  He  was  a  real  chivalrous  knight  at  a  time 
when  the  bogus  variety  was  plenteous.  In  conduct 
ing  the  case,  Clay  was  as  fearless  as  a  knight-errant. 
Once  enlisted  in  a  humane  cause,  nothing  deterred 
him.  It  became  necessary  for  him,  in  accordance 
with  the  usages  of  the  time,  to  speak  plainly  about 
Colonel  Daviess.  That  gentleman  was  wroth  and 
demanded  "  satisfaction."  Clay  responded  promptly, 
and  the  parties  met  on  "  the  field  of  honor,"  but  the 
seconds  secured  an  accommodation.  In  this  Clay 
only  did  what  custom  required,  and  is  hardly  repre 
hensible.  A  few  months  later  Hamilton  fell  at 
Weehawken,  and  thereafter  the  moral  sense  of  the 
country  was  so  aroused  that  no  subsequent  duellist 
was  held  entirely  guiltless.  Thereafter  the  highest 
moral  courage  was  often  required  in  a  refusal  to  con 
nive  at  murder ;  but  Clay,  convinced  as  he  was  of 
the  absurdity  and  criminality  of  the  system,  was  not 
equal  to  the  task  of  refusal, — not  after  a  public 
speech  denouncing  the  custom. 

Clay's  next  appearance  on  "  the  field  of  honor" 
was  in  reality  due  to  his  ardent  championship  of 
American  industries,  and,  to  a  limited  extent,  he  was 
the  first  martyr  to  "the  American  system  of  protec 
tion  to  home  industries."  In  1808,  when  the 
foreign  troubles  and  the  Embargo  were  the  chief 
causes  of  political  comment,  Clay,  while  in  the  Ken 
tucky  Legislature,  appeared  dressed  in  homespun. 
He  had  a  colloquy  with  Humphrey  Marshall,  then  the 
most  distinguished  of  Kentuckians,  who  was  also  in 
the  Legislature  as  a  Federalist.  Clay  championed  a 

105 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

resolution  endorsing  Jefferson  and  his  policy,  which 
Marshall  opposed.  Then  Clay  went  further,  and 
offered  a  resolution  recommending  to  all  members 
of  the  Legislature  to  wear  only  homespun.  For  this 
he  was  denounced  by  Marshall  as  a  cheap  dema 
gogue,  and  a  lively  interchange  of  language  followed, 
ending  in  arrangements  for  a  duel.  The  meeting 
was  held  and  two  shots  were  exchanged,  each  of  the 
combatants  receiving  a  slight  flesh  wound.  The 
seconds  decided  that  "honor  was  satisfied,"  and  the 
pistols  were  boxed  up.  This  affair  had  some  excuse  ; 
but  Clay's  last  and  most  famous  meeting  is  not  in 
any  wise  to  his  credit,  as  he  himself  admitted. 

As  this,  according  to  Benton,  who  figured  in  it 
largely  and  was  an  expert  in  the  code,  was  the  last 
"high-toned  duel,"  and  in  fact  the  "highest- toned" 
he  ever  witnessed,  it  deserves  more  than  passing 
mention  ;  and  it  is  of  particular  interest  that  Benton 
felt  called  upon  to  write  out  the  complete  details. 
In  1826,  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  was  ap 
proaching  the  end  of  that  singularly  erratic  career 
which  is  one  of  the  most  curious  and  entertaining  in 
history.  There  is  no  doubt  that  at  times  he  was 
over  the  borders  of  responsibility,  largely  because  of 
his  long-continued  custom  of  speaking  and  other 
wise  indulging  himself  without  restraint  Jefferson 
had  caused  his  overthrow  from  power  in  the  House, 
and  Clay,  as  Speaker,  had  reduced  him  to  a  nonen 
tity,  except  as  vox  et  prceterea  nihil.  The  voice 
still  lived,  and  in  the  early  months  of  John  Quincy 
Adams's  administration  Randolph  found  it  a  pleasing 
custom  to  hurl  the  vials  of  his  wrath  upon  the  two 
parties  to  the  alleged  "  corrupt  bargain."  The  limit 
was  reached  when  in  a  speech  he  was  reported  to 
have  referred  (during  a  debate  on  the  Panama  Con 
gress  resolution  in  the  Senate,  of  which  Randolph 
was  for  a  brief  time  a  member),  to  Adams  and  Clay 
'  106 


CLAY   AS   A   DUELLIST 

as  "  the  coalition  of  Blifil  and  Black  George, — the 
combination,  unheard  of  until  then,  of  the  Puritan 
with  the  blackleg." 

This  was  harsh  talk,  almost  as  bad  as  some  of 
the  expressions  which  in  recent  years  have  defiled 
the  Senate  but  have  fallen  harmless  on  the  ears  of 
the  assailed.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  since  men 
have  ceased  to  be  held  responsible  under  "  the 
code"  for  their  words,  they,  as  a  rule,  have  ceased  to 
make  personal  attacks,  showing  that  the  system  grew 
by  feeding  on  its  victims,  and  that  actually  the  code 
led  men  to  court  duels  rather  than  to  avoid  them. 

Whether  or  not  Randolph  ever  uttered  such  lan 
guage,  coupled  with  the  statement  that  he  was 
responsible  for  his  words,  is  uncertain.  The  official 
record,  not  then  verbatim,  shows  nothing  of  the 
sort,  but  it  was  notoriously  unreliable  as  to  verbal 
accuracy.  Benton,  who  was  present,  says  he  heard 
nothing  of  the  sort,  and,  as  he  was  a  relative  of  Mrs. 
Clay,  he  probably  would  have  noticed  any  such  as 
persions.  Randolph  later  denied  them.  Still,  the 
direct  evidence  was  enough  to  inflame  Clay,  who, 
as  Secretary  of  State,  was  having  a  hard  task  to 
maintain  himself  against  the  aspersions  so  commonly 
made  as  to-  the  corrupt  bargain  with  Adams.  Details 
of  this  belong  to  another  chapter,  but  it  is  of  interest 
here  to  note  that  Clay  had  pledged  himself  to  fight 
a  duel  with  the  anonymous  member  of  Congress 
who  had  published  in  a  Philadelphia  newspaper 
what  purported  to  be  an  authoritative  and  circum 
stantial  account  of  the  corrupt  bargain.  As  it 
turned  out,  Clay  felt  he  had  no  cause  to  fight  the 
author,  who  was  only  a  stool-pigeon  for  others,  and 
he  selected  Randolph  as  his  antagonist  In  this 
he  was  reprehensible.  Blood  could  not  settle  this 
quarrel,  and  Randolph  was  no  longer  intellectually 
or  morally  a  foeman  to  be  called  out. 

107 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Clay  did  not  hesitate.  He  sent  his  friend,  General 
Jesup,  to  interrogate  Randolph,  at  the  same  time 
giving  him  the  usual  letter  to  be  handed  over  if  the 
interview  was  not  satisfactory.  No  duello  was  ever 
more  involved  in  fine  considerations  than  this,  which 
seemed  to  exhaust  every  technicality  and  point  of 
honor  in  the  code.  As  this  was  the  most  remark 
able  bloodless  duel  which  ever  took  place  in  our 
political  history,  and  one  of  the  last,  it  is  of  more 
than  ordinary  interest.  Benton  acted  as  mutual 
friend  throughout  the  affair,  and  left  on  record  an 
account  of  it  which  is  not  only  of  historical  interest, 
but  is  a  unique  piece  of  literature  which  is  almost 
forgotten  and  is  seldom  read.  No  apology  is, 
therefore,  necessary  for  quoting  largely  from  his 
account,  since  he  writes  with  the  skill  of  an  expert 
and  the  joy  of  a  connoisseur.  This  is  Benton's  ac 
count  : 


' '  It  was  Saturday,  the  first  day  of  April,  towards  noon, 
the  Senate  not  being  that  day  in  session,  that  Mr.  Randolph 
came  to  my  room  at  Brown's  Hotel,  and  (without  explaining 
the  reason  of  the  question)  asked  me  if  I  was  a  blood-relation 
of  Mrs.  Clay  ?  I  answered  that  I  was,  and  he  immediately 
replied  that  that  put  an  end  to  a  request  which  he  had  wished 
to  make  of  me  ;  and  then  went  on  to  tell  me  that  he  had 
just  received  a  challenge  from  Mr.  Clay,  had  accepted  it, 
was  ready  to  go  out,  and  would  apply  to  Col.  Tatnall  to  be 
his  second.  Before  leaving,  he  told  me  he  would  make  my 
bosom  the  depository  of  a  secret  which  he  should  commit  to 
no  other  person  ;  it  was,  that  he  did  not  intend  to  fire  at  Mr. 
Clay.  He  told  it  to  me  because  he  wanted  a  witness  of  his 
intention,  and  did  not  mean  to  tell  it  to  his  second  or  any 
body  else  ;  and  enjoined  inviolable  secrecy  until  the  duel  was 
over.  This  was  the  first  notice  I  had  of  the  affair.  The  cir 
cumstances  of  the  delivery  of  the  challenge  I  had  from  Gen. 
Jesup,  Mr.  Clay's  second,  and  they  were  so  perfectly  char 
acteristic  of  Mr.  Randolph  that  I  give  them  in  detail,  and  in 
the  General's  own  words  : 

"  '  I  was  unable  to  see  Mr.  Randolph  until  the  morning  of 
the  1st  of  April,  when  I  called  on  him  for  the  purpose  of 

108 


CLAY   AS   A    DUELLIST 

delivering  the  note.  Previous  to  presenting  it,  however,  I 
thought  it  proper  to  ascertain  from  Mr.  Randolph  himself 
whether  the  information  which  Mr.  Clay  had  received — that 
he  considered  himself  personally  accountable  for  the  attack 
on  him — was  correct.  I  accordingly  informed  Mr.  Randolph 
that  I  was  the  bearer  of  a  message  from  Mr.  Clay  in  conse 
quence  of  an  attack  which  he  had  made  upon  his  private  as 
well  as  public  character  in  the  Senate  ;  that  I  was  aware  no 
one  had  the  right  to  question  him  out  of  the  Senate  for  any 
thing  said  in  debate,  unless  he  chose  voluntarily  to  waive  his 
privileges  as  a  member  of  that  body.  Mr.  Randolph  replied, 
that  the  constitution  did  protect  him,  but  he  would  never 
shield  himself  under  such  a  subterfuge  as  the  pleading  of  his 
privilege  as  a  senator  from  Virginia  ;  that  he  did  hold  him 
self  accountable  to  Mr.  Clay  ;  but  he  said  that  gentleman  had 
first  two  pledges  to  redeem  :  one,  that  he  had  bound  himself 
to  fight  any  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  who 
should  acknowledge  himself  the  author  of  a  certain  publica 
tion  in  a  Philadelphia  paper  ;  and  the  other,  that  he  stood 
pledged  to  establish  certain  facts  in  regard  to  a  great 
man,  whom  he  would  not  name  ;  but,  he  added,  he  could 
receive  no  verbal  message  from  Mr.  Clay — that  any  message 
from  him  must  be  in  writing.  I  replied  that  I  was  not  author 
ized  by  Mr.  Clay  to  enter  into  or  receive  any  verbal  explana 
tion — that  the  inquiries  I  had  made  were  for  my  own  satisfac 
tion  and  upon  my  own  responsibility — that  the  only  message 
of  which  I  was  the  bearer  was  in  writing.  I  then  presented 
the  note,  and  remarked  that  I  knew  nothing  of  Mr.  Clay's 
pledges  ;  but  that  if  they  existed  as  he  (Mr.  Randolph)  un 
derstood  them,  and  he  was  aware  of  them  when  he  made  the 
attack  complained  of,  he  could  not  avail  himself  of  them — 
that  by  making  the  attack  I  thought  he  had  waived  them 
himself.  He  said  he  had  not  the  remotest  intention  of  taking 
advantage  of  the  pledges  referred  to  ;  that  he  had  mentioned 
them  merely  to  remind  me  that  he  was  waiving  his  privilege, 
not  only  as  a  senator  from  Virginia,  but  as  a  private  gentle 
man  ;  that  he  was  ready  to  respond  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  would 
be  obliged  to  me  if  I  would  bear  his  note  in  reply  ;  and  that 
he  would  in  the  course  of  the  day  look  out  for  a  friend.  I 
declined  being  the  bearer  of  his  note,  but  informed  him  my 
only  reason  for  declining  was,  that  I  thought  he  owed  it  to 
himself  to  consult  his  friends  before  taking  so  important  a 
step.  He  seized  my  hand,  saying,  "You  are  right,  sir.  I 
thank  you  for  the  suggestion  ;  but  as  you  do  not  take  my 
note,  you  must  not  be  impatient  if  you  should  not  hear  from 

109 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

me  to-day.  I  now  think  of  only  two  friends,  and  there  are 
circumstances  connected  with  one  of  them  which  may  de 
prive  me  of  his  services,  and  the  other  is  in  bad  health — 
he  was  sick  yesterday,  and  may  not  be  out  to-day."  I 
assured  him  that  any  reasonable  time  which  he  might  find 
it  necessary  to  take  would  be  satisfactory.  I  took  leave  of 
him  ;  and  it  is  due  to  his  memory  to  say  that  his  bearing 
was,  throughout  the  interview,  that  of  a  high-toned,  chival 
rous  gentleman  of  the  old  school.' 

' '  These  were  the  circumstances  of  the  delivery  of  the  chal 
lenge,  and  the  only  thing  necessary  to  give  them  their  char 
acter  is  to  recollect  that,  with  this  prompt  acceptance  and 
positive  refusal  to  explain,  and  this  extra  cut  about  the  two 
pledges,  there  was  a  perfect  determination  not  to  fire  at  Mr. 
Clay.  That  determination  rested  on  two  grounds  :  first,  an 
entire  unwillingness  to  hurt  Mr.  Clay  ;  and  next,  a  conviction 
that  to  return  the  fire  would  be  to  answer,  and  would  be  an 
implied  acknowledgment  of  Mr.  Clay' s  right  to  make  him  an 
swer.  This  he  would  not  do,  neither  by  implication  nor  in 
words.  He  denied  the  right  of  any  person  to  question  him 
out  of  the  Senate  for  words  spoken  within  it.  He  took  a  dis 
tinction  between  man  and  senator.  As  senator  he  had  a 
constitutional  immunity,  given  for  a  wise  purpose,  and  which 
he  would  neither  surrender  nor  compromise;  as  individual  he 
was  ready  to  give  satisfaction  for  what  was  deemed  an  injury. 
He  would  receive,  but  not  return  a  fire.  It  was  as  much  as  to 
say  :  Mr.  Clay  may  fire  at  me  for  what  has  offended  him  ;  I 
will  not,  by  returning  the  fire,  admit  his  right  to  do  so. 
This  was  a  subtle  distinction,  and  that  in  a  case  of  life  and 
death,  and  not  very  clear  to  the  common  intellect ;  but  to  Mr. 
Randolph  both  clear  and  convincing.  His  allusion  to  the 
'  two  pledges  unredeemed, '  which  he  might  have  plead  in  bar 
to  Mr.  Clay's  challenge,  and  would  not,  was  another  sarcastic 
cut  at  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Clay,  while  rendering  satisfaction 
for  cuts  already  given.  The  '  member  of  the  House'  was 
Mr.  George  Kremer,  of  Pennsylvania,  who,  at  the  time  of  the 
presidential  election  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  had 
avowed  himself  to  be  the  author  of  an  anonymous  publica 
tion,  the  writer  of  which  Mr.  Clay  had  threatened  to  call  to 
account  if  he  would  avow  himself — and  did  not.  The  '  great 
man*  was  President  Adams,  with  whom  Mr.  Clay  had  had  a 
newspaper  controversy,  involving  a  question  of  fact, — which 
had  been  postponed.  The  cause  of  this  sarcastic  cut,  and  of 
all  the  keen  personality  in  the  Panama  speech,  was  the  belief 
that  the  President  and  Secretary,  the  latter  especially, 


CLAY   AS   A    DUELLIST 

encouraged  the  newspapers  in  their  interest  to  attack  him, 
which  they  did  incessantly  ;  and  he  chose  to  overlook  the 
editors  and  retaliate  upon  the  instigators,  as  he  believed  them 
to  be.  This  he  did  to  his  heart's  content  in  that  speech — 
and  to  their  great  annoyance,  as  the  coming  of  the  challenge 
proved.  The  '  two  friends'  alluded  to  were  Colonel  Tatnall 
and  myself,  and  the  circumstances  which  might  disqualify  one 
of  the  two  were  those  of  my  relationship  to  Mrs.  Clay,  of  which 
he  did  not  know  the  degree,  and  whether  of  affinity  or  consan 
guinity — considering  the  first  no  obstacle,  the  other  a  com 
plete  bar  to  my  appearing  as  his  second — holding  as  he  did, 
with  the  tenacity  of  an  Indian,  to  the  obligations  of  blood, 
and  laying  but  little  stress  on  marriage  connections.  His 
affable  reception  and  courteous  demeanor  to  General  Jesup 
were  according  to  his  own  high  breeding  and  the  decorum 
which  belonged  to  such  occasions.  A  duel  in  the  circle  to 
which  he  belonged  was  '  an  affair  of  honor  ;'  and  high  honor, 
according  to  its  code,  must  pervade  every  part  of  it.  General 
Jesup  had  come  upon  an  unpleasant  business.  Mr.  Randolph 
determined  to  put  him  at  his  ease  ;  and  did  it  so  effectually 
as  to  charm  him  into  admiration.  The  whole  plan  of  his  con 
duct,  down  to  contingent  details,  was  cast  in  his  mind 
instantly,  as  if  by  intuition,  and  never  departed  from.  The 
acceptance,  the  refusal  to  explain,  the  determination  not  to 
fire,  the  first  and  second  choice  of  a  friend,  and  the  circum 
stances  which  might  disqualify  one  and  delay  the  other,  the 
additional  cut,  and  the  resolve  to  fall,  if  he  fell,  on  the  soil 
of  Virginia — was  all,  to  his  mind,  a  single  emanation,  the 
flash  of  an  instant.  He  needed  no  consultations,  no  delib 
erations  to  arrive  at  all  these  important  conclusions.  I  dwell 
upon  these  small  circumstances  because  they  are  charac 
teristic,  and  show  the  man — a  man  who  belongs  to  history, 
and  had  his  own  history,  and  should  be  known  as  he  was. 
That  character  can  only  be  shown  in  his  own  conduct,  his  own 
words  and  acts  ;  and  this  duel  with  Mr.  Clay  illustrates  it  at 
many  points.  It  is  in  that  point  of  view  that  I  dwell  upon 
circumstances  which  might  seem  trivial,  but  which  are  not  so, 
being  illustrative  of  character  and  significant  to  their  smallest 
particulars. 

4 '  The  acceptance  of  the  challenge  was  in  keeping  with  the 
whole  proceeding — prompt  in  the  agreement  to  meet,  exact 
in  protesting  against  the  right  to  call  him  out,  clear  in  the 
waiver  of  his  constitutional  privilege,  brief  and  cogent  in  pre 
senting  the  case  as  one  of  some  reprehension — the  case  of  a 
member  of  an  administration  challenging  a  senator  for  words 

in 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

spoken  in  debate  of  that  administration  ;  and  all  in  brief, 
terse,  and  superlatively  decorous  language.  It  ran  thus  : 

' '  '  Mr.  Randolph  accepts  the  challenge  of  Mr.  Clay.  At 
the  same  time  he  protests  against  the  right  of  any  minister 
of  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States  to  hold 
him  responsible  for  words  spoken  in  debate,  as  a  senator  from 
Virginia,  in  crimination  of  such  minister,  or  the  administra 
tion  under  which  he  shall  have  taken  office.  Colonel  Tat- 
nall,  of  Georgia,  the  bearer  of  this  letter,  is  authorized  to 
arrange  with  General  Jesup  (the  bearer  of  Mr.  Clay's  chal 
lenge)  the  terms  of  the  meeting  to  which  Mr.  Randolph  is 
invited  by  that  note. ' 

"This  protest  which  Mr.  Randolph  entered  against  the 
right  of  Mr.  Clay  to  challenge  him  led  to  an  explanation 
between  their  mutual  friends  on  that  delicate  point — a  point 
which  concerned  the  independence  of  debate,  the  privileges 
of  the  Senate,  the  immunity  of  a  member,  and  the  sanctity 
of  the  constitution.  It  was  a  point  which  Mr.  Clay  felt;  and 
the  explanation  which  was  had  between  the  mutual  friends 
presented  an  excuse,  if  not  a  justification,  for  his  proceeding. 
He  had  been  informed  that  Mr.  Randolph,  in  his  speech,  had 
avowed  his  responsibility  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  waived  his  privi 
lege — a  thing  which,  if  it  had  been  done,  would  have  been  a 
defiance,  and  stood  for  an  invitation  to  Mr.  Clay  to  send  a 
challenge.  Mr.  Randolph,  through  Colonel  Tatnall,  disavowed 
that  imputed  avowal,  and  confined  his  waiver  of  privilege  to 
the  time  of  the  delivery  of  the  challenge,  and  in  answer  to 
an  inquiry  before  it  was  delivered. 

"  The  following  are  the  communications  between  the  respec 
tive  seconds  on  this  point : 

"  '  In  regard  to  the  protest  with  which  Mr.  Randolph's  note 
concludes,  it  is  due  to  Mr.  Clay  to  say  that  he  had  been  in 
formed  Mr.  Randolph  did,  and  would,  hold  himself  respon 
sible  to  him  for  any  observations  he  might  make  in  relation 
to  him  ;  and  that  I  (General  Jesup)  distinctly  understood  from 
Mr.  Randolph,  before  I  delivered  the  note  of  Mr.  Clay,  that 
he  waived  his  privilege  as  a  senator.' 

"  To  this  Colonel  Tatnall  replied  : 

"  '  As  this  expression  (did,  and  would,  hold  himself  respon 
sible,  &c.)  may  be  construed  to  mean  that  Mr.  Randolph 
had  given  this  intimation  not  only  before  called  upon,  but  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  throw  out  to  Mr.  Clay  something  like 
an  invitation  to  make  such  a  call,  I  have,  on  the  part  of  Mr. 
Randolph,  to  disavow  any  disposition,  when  expressing  his 
readiness  to  waive  his  privilege  as  a  senator  from  Virginia, 

112 


CLAY   AS   A   DUELLIST 

to  invite,  in  any  case,  a  call  upon  him  for  personal  satisfac 
tion.  The  concluding  paragraph  of  your  note,  I  presume,  is 
intended  to  show  merely  that  you  did  not  present  a  note, 
such  as  that  of  Mr.  Clay  to  Mr.  Randolph,  until  you  had 
ascertained  his  willingness  to  waive  his  privilege  as  a  sena 
tor.  This  I  infer,  as  it  was  in  your  recollection  that  the 
expression  of  such  a  readiness  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Randolph 
was  in  reply  to  an  inquiry  on  that  point  made  by  yourself.' 

"Thus  an  irritating  circumstance  in  the  affair  was  virtu 
ally  negatived,  and  its  offensive  import  wholly  disavowed. 
For  my  part,  I  do  not  believe  that  Mr.  Randolph  used  such 
language  in  his  speech.  I  have  no  recollection  of  having 
heard  it.  The  published  report  of  the  speech,  as  taken  down 
by  the  reporters  and  not  revised  by  the  speaker,  contains 
nothing  of  it.  Such  gasconade  was  foreign  to  Mr.  Ran 
dolph's  character.  The  occasion  was  not  one  in  which 
these  sort  of  defiances  are  thrown  out,  which  are  either  to 
purchase  a  cheap  reputation  when  it  is  known  they  will  be 
despised,  or  to  get  an  advantage  in  extracting  a  challenge 
when  there  is  a  design  to  kill.  Mr.  Randolph  had  none  of 
these  views  with  respect  to  Mr.  Clay.  He  had  no  desire  to 
fight  him,  or  to  hurt  him,  or  gain  cheap  reputation  by  appear 
ing  to  bully  him.  He  was  above  all  that,  and  had  settled 
accounts  with  him  in  his  speech,  and  wanted  no  more.  I 
do  not  believe  it  was  said  ;  but  there  was  a  part  of  the  speech 
which  might  have  received  a  wrong  application,  and  led  to 
the  erroneous  report :  a  part  which  applied  to  a  quoted  pas 
sage  in  Mr.  Adams's  Panama  message,  which  he  condemned 
and  denounced,  and  dared  the  President  and  his  friends  to 
defend.  His  words  were,  as  reported  unrevised  :  '  Here  I 
plant  my  foot ;  here  I  fling  defiance  right  into  his  (the  Presi 
dent's)  teeth  ;  here  I  throw  the  gauntlet  to  him  and  the 
bravest  of  his  compeers  to  come  forward  and  defend  these 
lines,'  &c.  A  very  palpable  defiance  this,  but  very  different 
from  a  summons  to  personal  combat,  and  from  what  was 
related  to  Mr.  Clay.  It  was  an  unfortunate  report,  doubtless 
the  effect  of  indistinct  apprehension,  and  the  more  to  be  re 
gretted  as,  after  having  been  a  main  cause  inducing  the 
challenge,  the  disavowal  could  not  stop  it. 

' '  Thus  the  agreement  for  the  meeting  was  absolute  ;  and, 
according  to  the  expectation  of  the  principals,  the  meeting 
itself  would  be  immediately  ;  but  their  seconds,  from  the 
most  laudable  feelings,  determined  to  delay  it,  with  the  hope 
to  prevent  it,  and  did  keep  it  off  a  week,  admitting  me  to  a 
participation  in  the  good  work,  as  being  already  privy  to  the 
8  113 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

affair  and  friendly  to  both  parties.  The  challenge  stated  no 
specific  ground  of  offence,  specified  no  exceptionable  words. 
It  was  peremptory  and  general,  for  an  '  unprovoked  attack 
on  his  (Mr.  Clay's)  character,'  and  it  dispensed  with  ex 
planations  by  alleging  that  the  notoriety  and  indisputable 
existence  of  the  injury  superseded  the  necessity  for  them. 
Of  course  this  demand  was  bottomed  on  a  report  of  the 
words  spoken — a  verbal  report,  the  full  daily  publication  of 
the  debates  having  not  then  begun — and  that  verbal  report 
was  of  a  character  greatly  to  exasperate  Mr.  Clay.  It  stated 
that  in  the  course  of  the  debate  Mr.  Randolph  said  : 

' '  '  That  a  letter  from  General  Salazar,  the  Mexican  Minis 
ter  at  Washington,  submitted  by  the  Executive  to  the  Senate, 
bore  the  ear-mark  of  having  been  manufactured  or  forged  by 
the  Secretary  of  State,  and  denounced  the  administration  as 
a  corrupt  coalition  between  the  puritan  and  blackleg  ;  and 
added  at  the  same  time,  that  he  (Mr.  Randolph)  held  him 
self  personally  responsible  for  all  that  he  had  said. ' 

' '  This  was  the  report  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  upon  which  he 
gave  the  absolute  challenge,  and  received  the  absolute  ac 
ceptance,  which  shut  out  all  inquiry  between  the  principals 
into  the  causes  of  the  quarrel.  The  seconds  determined  to 
open  it,  and  to  attempt  an  accommodation,  or  a  peaceable 
determination  of  the  difficulty.  In  consequence,  General 
Jesup  stated  the  complaint  in  a  note  to  Colonel  Tatnall.thus  : 

"  '  The  injury  of  which  Mr.  Clay  complains  consists  in  this, 
that  Mr.  Randolph  has  charged  him  with  having  forged  or 
manufactured  a  paper  connected  with  the  Panama  mission  ; 
also,  that  he  has  applied  to  him  in  debate  the  epithet  of 
blackleg.  The  explanation  which  I  consider  necessary, 
is  that  Mr.  Randolph  declare  that  he  had  no  intention  of 
charging  Mr.  Clay,  either  in  his  public  or  private  capacity,  with 
forging  or  falsifying  any  paper,  or  misrepresenting  any  fact ; 
and  also  that  the  term  blackleg  was  not  intended  to  apply  to 
him.' 

' '  To  this  exposition  of  the  grounds  of  the  complaint  Col. 
Tatnall  answered  : 

"  '  Mr.  Randolph  informs  me  that  the  words  used  by  him  in 
debate  were  as  follows  :  "  That  I  thought  it  would  be  in  my 
power  to  show  evidence  sufficiently  presumptive  to  satisfy  a 
Charlotte  (county)  jury  that  this  invitation  was  manufactured 
here — that  Saiazar's  letter  struck  me  as  bearing  a  strong 
likeness  in  point  of  style  to  the  other  papers.  I  did  not  un 
dertake  to  prove  this,  but  expressed  my  suspicion  that  the 
fact  was  so.  I  applied  to  the  administration  the  epithet, 

114 


CLAY   AS   A   DUELLIST 

puritanic -diplomatic-blacklegged administration."  Mr.  Ran 
dolph,  in  giving  these  words  as  those  uttered  by  him  in 
debate,  is  unwilling  to  afford  any  explanation  as  to  their 
meaning  and  application.' 

"  In  this  answer  Mr.  Randolph  remained  upon  his  original 
ground  of  refusing  to  answer  out  of  the  Senate  for  words 
spoken  within  it.  In  other  respects  the  statement  of  the 
words  actually  spoken  greatly  ameliorated  the  offensive  re 
port,  the  coarse  and  insulting  words,  '  forging  and  falsifying,' 
being  disavowed,  as  in  fact  they  were  not  used,  and  are  not 
to  be  found  in  the  published  report.  The  speech  was  a 
bitter  philippic,  and  intended  to  be  so,  taking  for  its  point  the 
alleged  coalition  between  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Adams  with 
respect  to  the  election,  and  their  efforts  to  get  up  a  popular 
question  contrary  to  our  policy  of  non-entanglement  with 
foreign  nations,  in  sending  ministers  to  the  congress  of  the 
American  States  of  Spanish  origin  at  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 
I  heard  it  all,  and,  though  sharp  and  cutting,  I  think  it 
might  have  been  heard,  had  he  been  present,  without  any 
manifestation  of  resentment  by  Mr.  Clay.  The  part  which 
he  took  so  seriously  to  heart,  that  of  having  the  Panama  in 
vitations  manufactured  in  his  office,  was  to  my  mind  nothing 
more  than  attributing  to  him  a  diplomatic  superiority  which 
enabled  him  to  obtain  from  the  South  American  ministers 
the  invitations  that  he  wanted  ;  and  not  at  all  that  they  were 
spurious  fabrications.  As  to  the  expression,  '  blackleg  and 
puritan,'  it  was  merely  a  sarcasm  to  strike  by  antithesis,  and 
which,  being  without  foundation,  might  have  been  disre 
garded.  I  presented  these  views  to  the  parties,  and  if  they 
had  come  from  Mr.  Randolph  they  might  have  been  suffi 
cient  ;  but  he  was  inexorable,  and  would  not  authorize  a 
word  to  be  said  beyond  what  he  had  written. 

"All  hope  of  accommodation  having  vanished,  the  sec 
onds  proceeded  to  arrange  for  the  duel.  The  afternoon  of 
Saturday,  the  8th  of  April,  was  fixed  upon  for  the  time  ;  the 
right  bank  of  the  Potomac,  within  the  State  of  Virginia, 
above  the  Little  Falls  bridge,  was  the  place — pistols  the 
weapons — distance  ten  paces  ;  each  party  to  be  attended  by 
two  seconds  and  a  surgeon,  and  myself  at  liberty  to  attend 
as  a  mutual  friend.  There  was  to  be  no  practising  with  pis 
tols,  and  there  was  none  ;  and  the  words  '  one, '  « two, ' 
'three,'  'stop,'  after  the  word  'fire,'  were,  by  agreement 
between  the  seconds,  and  for  the  humane  purpose  of  re 
ducing  the  result  as  near  as  possible  to  chance,  to  be  given 
out  in  quick  succession.  The  Virginia  side  of  the  Potomac 

"5 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

was  taken  at  the  instance  of  Mr.  Randolph.  He  went  out 
as  a  Virginia  senator,  refusing  to  compromise  that  character, 
and,  if  he  fell  in  defence  of  its  rights,  Virginia  soil  was  to  him 
the  chosen  ground  to  receive  his  blood.  There  was  a  statute 
of  the  State  against  duelling  within  her  limits  ;  but,  as  he 
merely  went  out  to  receive  a  fire  without  returning  it,  he 
deemed  that  no  fighting,  and  consequently  no  breach  of  her 
statute.  This  reason  for  choosing  Virginia  could  only  be 
explained  to  me,  as  I  alone  was  the  depository  of  his  secret. 

"  The  week's  delay  which  the  seconds  had  contrived  was 
about  expiring.  It  was  Friday  evening,  or  rather  night, 
when  I  went  to  see  Mr.  Clay  for  the  last  time  before  the  duel. 
There  had  been  some  alienation  between  us  since  the  time  of 
the  presidential  election  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  I  wished  to  give  evidence  that  there  was  nothing  per 
sonal  in  it.  The  family  were  in  the  parlor — company  present 
— and  some  of  it  staid  late.  The  youngest  child,  I  believe 
James,  went  to  sleep  on  the  sofa — a  circumstance  which 
availed  me  for  a  purpose  the  next  day.  Mrs.  Clay  was,  as 
always  since  the  death  of  her  daughters,  the  picture  of  deso 
lation,  but  calm,  conversable,  and  without  the  slightest 
apparent  consciousness  of  the  impending  event.  When  all 
were  gone,  and  she  also  had  left  the  parlor,  I  did  what  I 
came  for,  and  said  to  Mr.  Clay,  that,  notwithstanding  our 
late  political  differences,  my  personal  feelings  towards  him 
were  the  same  as  formerly,  and  that  in  whatever  concerned 
his  life  or  honor  my  best  wishes  were  with  him.  He  expressed 
his  gratification  at  the  visit  and  the  declaration,  and  said  it 
was  what  he  would  have  expected  of  me.  We  parted  at 
midnight. 

"Saturday,  the  8th  of  April — the  day  for  the  duel — had 
come,  and  almost  the  hour.  It  was  noon,  and  the  meeting 
was  to  take  place  at  4^  o'clock.  I  had  gone  to  see  Mr. 
Randolph  before  the  hour,  and  for  a  purpose  ;  and,  besides, 
it  was  so  far  on  the  way,  as  he  lived  half  way  to  Georgetown, 
and  we  had  to  pass  through  that  place  to  cross  the  Potomac 
into  Virginia  at  the  Little  Falls  bridge.  I  had  heard  nothing 
from  him  on  the  point  of  not  returning  the  fire  since  the  first 
communication  to  that  effect,  eight  days  before.  I  had  no 
reason  to  doubt  the  steadiness  of  his  determination,  but  felt 
a  desire  to  have  fresh  assurance  of  it  after  so  many  days' 
delay  and  so  near  approach  of  the  trying  moment.  I  knew 
it  would  not  do  to  ask  him  the  question — any  question  which 
would  imply  a  doubt  of  his  word.  His  sensitive  feelings 
would  be  hurt  and  annoyed  at  it.  So  I  fell  upon  a  scheme 

116 


HENRY    CLAY'S    BEDSTEAD 

(This  bed  was  used  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clay  for  over  fifty  years.  It  was  a 
custom  at  Ashland  that  the  water  pitcher  should  always  stand  at  the  foot  of  the 
bed.  The  bed  and  accessories  are  now  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  M.  Clay, 
Lexington,  Kentucky.) 


CLAY   AS   A    DUELLIST 

to  get  at  the  inquiry  without  seeming  to  make  it.  I  told 
him  of  my  visit  to  Mr.  Clay  the  night  before — of  the  late 
sitting — the  child  asleep — the  unconscious  tranquillity  of 
Mrs.  Clay;  and  added,  I  could  not  help  reflecting  how 
different  all  that  might  be  the  next  night.  He  understood 
me  perfectly,  and  immediately  said,  with  a  quietude  of 
look  and  expression  which  seemed  to  rebuke  an  unworthy 

doubt,  'I  SHALL  DO  NOTHING  TO  DISTURB  THE  SLEEP  OF 
THE  CHILD  OR  THE  REPOSE  OF  THE  MOTHER,'  and 

went  on  with  his  employment — (his  seconds  being  engaged 
in  their  preparations  in  a  different  room) — which  was, 
making  codicils  to  his  will,  all  in  the  way  of  remembrance 
to  friends ;  the  bequests  slight  in  value,  but  invaluable 
in  tenderness  of  feeling  and  beauty  of  expression,  and 
always  appropriate  to  the  receiver.  To  Mr.  Macon  he 
gave  some  English  shillings,  to  keep  the  game  when  he 
played  whist.  His  namesake,  John  Randolph  Bryan,  then 
at  school  in  Baltimore,  and  since  married  to  his  niece,  had 
been  sent  for  to  see  him,  but  sent  off  before  the  hour  for 
going  out,  to  save  the  boy  from  a  possible  shock  at  seeing 
him  brought  back.  He  wanted  some  gold — that  coin  not 
being  then  in  circulation,  and  only  to  be  obtained  by  favor 
or  purchase — and  sent  his  faithful  man,  Johnny,  to  the 
United  States  Branch  Bank  to  get  a  few  pieces,  American 
being  the  kind  asked  for.  Johnny  returned  without  the  gold, 
and  delivered  the  excuse  that  the  bank  had  none.  Instantly 
Mr.  Randolph's  clear,  silver-toned  voice  was  heard  above  its 
natural  pitch,  exclaiming,  '  Their  name  is  legion  !  and  they 
are  liars  from  the  beginning.  Johnny,  bring  me  my  horse.' 
His  own  saddle-horse  was  brought  him — for  he  never  rode 
Johnny's,  nor  Johnny  his,  though  both,  and  all  his  hundred 
horses,  were  of  the  finest  English  blood — and  rode  off  to  the 
bank  down  Pennsylvania  avenue,  now  Corcoran  &  Rigg's — 
Johnny  following,  as  always,  forty  paces  behind.  Arrived 
at  the  bank,  this  scene,  according  to  my  informant,  took 
place  : 

"  '  Mr.  Randolph  asked  for  the  state  of  his  account,  was 
shown  it,  and  found  to  be  some  four  thousand  dollars  in  his 
favor.  He  asked  for  it.  The  teller  took  up  packages  of 
bills,  and  civilly  asked  in  what  sized  notes  he  would  have  it. 
"I  want  money,"  said  Mr.  Randolph,  putting  emphasis  on 
the  word  ;  and  at  that  time  it  required  a  bold  man  to  inti 
mate  that  United  States  Bank  notes  were  not  money.  The 
teller,  beginning  to  understand  him,  and  willing  to  make 
sure,  said,  inquiringly,  " You  want  silver ?"  "I  want  my 

117 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

money  !"  was  the  reply.  Then  the  teller,  lifting  boxes  to  the 
counter,  said  politely,  "  Have  you  a  cart,  Mr.  Randolph,  to 
put  it  in?"  "That  is  my  business,  sir,"  said  he.  By  that 
time  the  attention  of  the  cashier  (Mr.  Richard  Smith)  was 
attracted  to  what  was  going  on,  who  came  up  and,  under 
standing  the  question  and  its  cause,  told  Mr.  Randolph  there 
was  a  mistake  in  the  answer  given  to  his  servant  ;  that  they 
had  gold,  and  he  should  have  what  he  wanted. ' 

"  In  fact,  he  had  only  applied  for  a  few  pieces,  which  he 
wanted  for  a  special  purpose.  This  brought  about  a  com 
promise.  The  pieces  of  gold  were  received,  the  cart  and  the 
silver  dispensed  with  ;  but  the  account  in  bank  was  closed, 
and  a  check  taken  for  the  amount  on  New-York.  He  re 
turned  and  delivered  me  a  sealed  paper,  which  I  was  to  open 
if  he  was  killed — give  back  to  him  if  he  was  not ;  also  an 
open  slip,  which  I  was  to  read  before  I  got  to  the  ground. 
This  slip  was  a  request  to  feel  in  his  left  breeches  pocket,  if 
he  was  killed,  and  find  so  many  pieces  of  gold — I  believe 
nine — take  three  for  myself,  and  give  the  same  number  to 
Tatnall  and  Hamilton  each,  to  make  seals  to  wear  in  remem 
brance  of  him.  We  were  all  three  at  Mr.  Randolph's  lodg 
ings  then,  and  soon  set  out,  Mr.  Randolph  and  his  seconds 
in  a  carriage,  I  following  him  on  horseback. 

' '  I  have  already  said  that  the  count  was  to  be  quick  after 
giving  the  word  '  fire, '  and  for  a  reason  which  could  not  be 
told  to  the  principals.  To  Mr.  Randolph,  who  did  not  mean 
to  fire,  and  who,  though  agreeing  to  be  shot  at,  had  no  de 
sire  to  be  hit,  this  rapidity  of  counting  out  the  time  and 
quick  arrival  at  the  command  'stop,'  presented  no  objec 
tion.  With  Mr.  Clay  it  was  different.  With  him  it  was 
all  a  real  transaction,  and  gave  rise  to  some  proposal  for 
more  deliberateness  in  counting  off  the  time ;  which, 
being  communicated  to  Col.  Tatnall,  and  by  him  to  Mr. 
Randolph,  had  an  ill  effect  upon  his  feelings,  and,  aided  by 
an  untoward  accident  on  the  ground,  unsettled  for  a  moment 
the  noble  determination  which  he  had  formed  not  to  fire  at 
Mr.  Clay.  I  now  give  the  words  of  Gen.  Jesup  : 

' ' '  When  I  repeated  to  Mr.  Clay  the  ' '  word, ' '  in  the  manner 
in  which  it  would  be  given,  he  expressed  some  apprehension 
that,  as  he  was  not  accustomed  to  the  use  of  the  pistol,  he 
might  not  be  able  to  fire  within  the  time,  and  for  that  reason 
alone  desired  that  it  might  be  prolonged.  I  mentioned  to 
Col.  Tatnall  the  desire  of  Mr.  Clay.  He  replied,  ' '  If  you 
insist  upon  it,  the  time  must  be  prolonged,  but  I  should  very 
much  regret  it."  I  informed  him  I  did  not  insist  upon  pro- 

118 


CLAY   AS   A   DUELLIST 

longing  the  time,  and  I  was  sure  Mr.  Clay  would  acquiesce. 
The  original  agreement  was  carried  out.' 

' '  I  knew  nothing  of  this  until  it  was  too  late  to  speak  with 
the  seconds  or  principals.  I  had  crossed  the  Little  Falls 
bridge  just  after  them,  and  come  to  the  place  where  the  ser 
vants  and  carriages  had  stopped.  I  saw  none  of  the  gentle 
men,  and  supposed  they  had  all  gone  to  the  spot  where  the 
ground  was  being  marked  off ;  but  on  speaking  to  Johnny, 
Mr.  Randolph,  who  was  still  in  his  carriage  and  heard  my 
voice,  looked  out  from  the  window,  and  said  to  me  :  '  Colonel, 
since  I  saw  you,  and  since  I  have  been  in  this  carriage,  I 
have  heard  something  which  may  make  me  change  my 
determination.  Colonel  Hamilton  will  give  you  a  note  which 
will  explain  it.'  Colonel  Hamilton  was  then  in  the  carriage, 
and  gave  me  the  note,  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  of  which 
Mr.  Randolph  spoke.  I  readily  comprehended  that  this  pos 
sible  change  of  determination  related  to  his  firing ;  but  the 
emphasis  with  which  he  pronounced  the  word  '  may'  clearly 
showed  that  his  mind  was  undecided,  and  left  it  doubtful 
whether  he  would  fire  or  not.  No  further  conversation  took 
place  between  us  ;  the  preparations  for  the  duel  were  finished  ; 
the  parties  went  to  their  places  ;  and  I  went  forward  to  a 
piece  of  rising  ground,  from  which  I  could  see  what  passed 
and  hear  what  was  said.  The  faithful  Johnny  followed  me 
close,  speaking  not  a  word,  but  evincing  the  deepest  anxiety 
for  his  beloved  master.  The  place  was  a  thick  forest,  and 
the  immediate  spot  a  little  depression,  or  basin,  in  which  the 
parties  stood.  The  principals  saluted  each  other  courteously 
as  they  took  their  stands.  Colonel  Tatnall  had  won  the  choice 
of  position,  which  gave  to  General  Jesup  the  delivery  of  the 
word.  They  stood  on  a  line  east  and  west — a  small  stump  just 
behind  Mr.  Clay  ;  a  low  gravelly  bank  rose  just  behind  Mr. 
Randolph.  This  latter  asked  General  Jesup  to  repeat  the  word 
as  he  would  give  it ;  and  while  in  the  act  of  doing  so,  and  Mr. 
Randolph  adjusting  the  butt  of  his  pistol  to  his  hand,  the 
muzzle  pointing  downwards,  and  almost  to  the  ground,  it  fired. 
Instantly  Mr.  Randolph  turned  to  Colonel  Tatnall  and  said  :  '  I 
protested  against  that  hair-trigger.'  Colonel  Tatnall  took 
blame  to  himself  for  having  sprung  the  hair.  Mr.  Clay  had  not 
then  received  his  pistol.  Senator  Johnson,  of  Louisiana 
(Josiah),  one  of  his  seconds,  was  carrying  it  to  him,  and  still 
several  steps  from  him.  This  untimely  fire,  though  clearly 
an  accident,  necessarily  gave  rise  to  some  remarks,  and  a 
species  of  inquiry,  which  was  conducted  with  the  utmost 
delicacy,  but  which,  in  itself,  was  of  a  nature  to  be  inex- 

119 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

pressibly  painful  to  a  gentleman's  feelings.  Mr.  Clay  stopped 
it  with  the  generous  remark,  that  the  fire  was  clearly  an  acci 
dent  :  and  it  was  so  unanimously  declared.  Another  pistol 
was  immediately  furnished,  and  exchange  of  shots  took  place, 
and,  happily,  without  effect  upon  the  persons.  Mr.  Ran 
dolph's  bullet  struck  the  stump  behind  Mr.  Clay,  and  Mr. 
Clay' s  knocked  up  the  earth  and  gravel  behind  Mr.  Randolph, 
and  in  a  line  with  the  level  of  his  hips,  both  bullets  having 
gone  so  true  and  close  that  it  was  a  marvel  how  they  missed. 
The  moment  had  come  for  me  to  interpose.  I  went  in  among 
the  parties  and  offered  my  mediation  ;  but  nothing  could  be 
done.  Mr.  Clay  said,  with  that  wave  of  the  hand  with  which 
he  was  accustomed  to  put  away  a  trifle,  '  THIS  is  CHILD'S 
PLAY  !'  and  required  another  fire.  Mr.  Randolph  also  de 
manded  another  fire.  The  seconds  were  directed  to  reload. 
While  this  was  doing  I  prevailed  on  Mr.  Randolph  to  walk 
away  from  his  post,  and  renewed  to  him,  more  pressingly  than 
ever,  my  importunities  to  yield  to  some  accommodation  ;  but 
I  found  him  more  determined  than  I  had  ever  seen  him,  and 
for  the  first  time  impatient,  and  seemingly  annoyed  and  dis 
satisfied  at  what  I  was  doing.  He  was  indeed  annoyed  and 
dissatisfied.  The  accidental  fire  of  his  pistol  preyed  upon  his 
feelings.  He  was  doubly  chagrined  at  it,  both  as  a  circum 
stance  susceptible  in  itself  of  an  unfair  interpretation,  and  as 
having  been  the  immediate  and  controlling  cause  of  his  firing 
at  Mr.  Clay.  He  regretted  this  fire  the  instant  it  was  over. 
He  felt  that  it  had  subjected  him  to  imputations  from  which  he 
knew  himself  to  be  free — a  desire  to  kill  Mr.  Clay,  and  a  con 
tempt  for  the  laws  of  his  beloved  State  ;  and  the  annoyances 
which  he  felt  at  these  vexatious  circumstances  revived  his  origi 
nal  determination,  and  decided  him  irrevocably  to  carry  it  out. 
' '  It  was  in  this  interval  that  he  told  me  what  he  had  heard 
since  we  parted,  and  to  which  he  alluded  wlien  he  spoke  to 
me  from  the  window  of  the  carriage.  It  was  to  this  effect  : 
That  he  had  been  informed  by  Colonel  Tatnall  that  it  was  pro 
posed  to  give  out  the  words  with  more  deliberateness,  so  as  to 
prolong  the  time  for  taking  aim.  This  information  grated 
harshly  upon  his  feelings.  It  unsettled  his  purpose,  and 
brought  his  mind  to  the  inquiry  (as  he  now  told  me,  and  as  I 
found  it  expressed  in  the  note  which  he  had  immediately 
written  in  pencil  to  apprise  me  of  his  possible  change), 
whether,  under  these  circumstances,  he  might  not  '  disable' 
his  adversary  ?  This  note  is  so  characteristic,  and  such  an 
essential  part  of  this  affair,  that  I  here  give  its  very  words,  so 
far  as  relates  to  this  point.  It  ran  thus  : 


CLAY   AS   A   DUELLIST 

"  '  Information  received  from  Colonel  Tatnall  since  I  got 
into  the  carriage  may  induce  me  to  change  my  mind,  of  not  re 
turning  Mr.  Clay's  fire.  I  seek  not  his  death.  I  would  not 
have  his  blood  upon  my  hands — it  will  not  be  upon  my  soul 
if  shed  in  self-defence — for  the  world.  He  has  determined, 
by  the  use  of  a  long,  preparatory  caution  by  words,  to  get 
time  to  kill  me.  May  I  not,  then,  disable  him  ?  Yes,  if  I 
please. ' 

"It  has  been  seen,  by  the  statement  of  General  Jesup, 
already  given,  that  this  '  INFORMATION'  was  a  misapprehen 
sion  ;  that  Mr.  Clay  had  not  applied  for  a  prolongation  of 
time  for  the  purpose  of  getting  sure  aim,  but  only  to  enable 
his  unused  hand,  long  unfamiliar  with  the  pistol,  to  fire 
within  the  limited  time  ;  that  there  was  no  prolongation,  in 
fact,  either  granted  or  insisted  upon  ;  but  he  was  in  doubt, 
and  General  Jesup  having  won  the  word,  he  was  having  him 
repeat  it  in  the  way  he  was  to  give  it  out,  when  his  finger 
touched  the  hair-trigger.  How  unfortunate  that  I  did  not  know 
of  this  in  time  to  speak  to  General  Jesup,  when  one  word 
from  him  would  have  set  all  right,  and  saved  the  imminent 
risks  incurred  !  This  inquiry,  '  May  I  not  disable  him  ?'  was 
still  on  Mr.  Randolph's  mind,  and  dependent  for  its  solu 
tion  on  the  rising  incidents  of  the  moment,  when  the  acci 
dental  fire  of  his  pistol  gave  the  turn  to  his  feelings  which 
solved  the  doubt.  But  he  declared  to  me  that  he  had  not  aimed 
at  the  life  of  Mr.  Clay  ;  that  he  did  not  level  as  high  as  the 
knees — not  higher  than  the  knee-band  ;  '  for  it  was  no  mercy 
to  shoot  a  man  in  the  knee  :'  that  his  only  object  was  to 
disable  him  and  spoil  his  aim.  And  then  added,  with  a 
beauty  of  expression  and  a  depth  of  feeling  which  no  studied 
oratory  can  ever  attain,  and  which  I  shall  never  forget,  these 
impressive  words  :  '  I  would  not  have  seen  him  fall  mortally, 
or  even  doubtfully  wounded,  for  all  the  land  that  is  watered 
by  the  King  of  Floods  and  all  his  tributary  streams.'  He 
left  me  to  resume  his  post,  utterly  refusing  to  explain  out  of 
the  Senate  any  thing  that  he  had  said  in  it,  and  with  the 
positive  declaration  that  he  would  not  return  the  next  fire. 
I  withdrew  a  little  way  into  the  woods,  and  kept  my  eyes 
fixed  on  Mr.  Randolph,  who  I  then  knew  to  be  the  only  one 
in  danger.  I  saw  him  receive  the  fire  of  Mr.  Clay,  saw  the 
gravel  knocked  up  in  the  same  place,  saw  Mr.  Randolph 
raise  his  pistol — discharge  it  in  the  air  ;  heard  him  say,  '  I 
do  not  fire  at  you,  Mr.  Clay;'  and  immediately  advancing 
and  offering  his  hand.  He  was  met  in  the  same  spirit. 
They  met  half  way,  shook  hands,  Mr.  Randolph  saying, 

121 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

jocosely,  'You  owe  me  a  coat,  Mr.  Clay, — (the  bullet  had 
passed  through  the  skirt  of  the  coat,  very  near  the  hip) — to 
which  Mr.  Clay  promptly  and  happily  replied,  '  I  am  glad 
the  debt  is  no  greater.'  I  had  come  up,  and  was  prompt  to 
proclaim  what  I  had  been  obliged  to  keep  secret  for  eight 
days.  The  joy  of  all  was  extreme  at  this  happy  termination 
of  a  most  critical  affair ;  and  we  immediately  left,  with 
lighter  hearts  than  we  brought.  I  stopped  to  sup  with  Mr. 
Randolph  and  his  friends — none  of  us  wanted  dinner  that 
day — and  had  a  characteristic  time  of  it.  A  runner  came  in 
from  the  bank  to  say  that  they  had  overpaid  him,  by  mistake, 
$130  that  day.  He  answered,  '  I  believe  it  is  your  rule  not 
to  correct  mistakes,  except  at  the  time,  and  at  your  counter.' 
And  with  that  answer  the  runner  had  to  return.  When 
gone  Mr.  Randolph  said,  '  I  will  pay  it  on  Monday  :  people 
must  be  honest,  if  banks  are  not. '  He  asked  for  the  sealed 
paper  he  had  given  me,  opened  it,  took  out  a  check  for 
$1000,  drawn  in  my  favor,  and  with  which  I  was  requested 
to  have  him  carried,  if  killed,  to  Virginia,  and  buried  under 
his  patrimonial  oaks — not  let  him  be  buried  at  Washington, 
with  an  hundred  hacks  after  him.  He  took  the  gold  from 
his  left  breeches  pocket,  and  said  to  us  (Hamilton,  Tatnall, 
and  I),  'Gentlemen,  Clay's  bad  shooting  shan't  rob  you  of 
your  seals.  I  am  going  to  London,  and  will  have  them 
made  for  you  ;'  which  he  did,  and  most  characteristically, 
so  far  as  mine  was  concerned.  He  went  to  the  Herald's 
office  in  London  and  inquired  for  the  Benton  family,  of 
which  I  had  often  told  him  there  was  none,  as  we  only  dated 
on  that  side  from  my  grandfather  in  North  Carolina.  But 
the  name  was  found,  and  with  it  a  coat  of  arms — among  the 
quarterings  a  lion  rampant.  '  That  is  the  family, '  said  he  ; 
and  had  the  arms  engraved  on  the  seal,  the  same  which  I 
have  since  habitually  worn  ;  and  added  the  motto  :  Factis 
non  verbis ;  of  which  he  was  afterwards  accustomed  to  say 
the  non  should  be  changed  into  et.  But,  enough.  I  run 
into  these  details,  not  merely  to  relate  an  event,  but  to  show 
character  ;  and  if  I  have  not  done  it,  it  is  not  for  want  of 
material,  but  of  ability  to  use  it. 

' '  On  Monday  the  parties  exchanged  cards,  and  social  rela 
tions  were  formally  and  courteously  restored.  It  was  about 
the  last  high-toned  duel  that  I  have  witnessed,  and  among 
the  highest-toned  that  I  have  ever  witnessed,  and  so  happily 
conducted  to  a  fortunate  issue — a  result  due  to  the  noble 
character  of  the  seconds  as  well  as  to  the  generous  and 
heroic  spirit  of  the  principals.  Certainly  duelling  is  bad,  and 

122 


CLAY   AS   A   DUELLIST 

has  been  put  down,  but  not  quite  so  bad  as  its  substitute — 
revolvers,  bowie-knives,  blackguarding,  and  street  assassina 
tions  under  the  pretext  of  self-defence. ' ' 

In  this  Clay  does  not  show  to  advantage,  and  in 
later  years  it  cost  him  support  among  the  moral 
element  of  the  community.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that 
on  election  day  there  were  always  many  thousands 
who  would  vote  against  Clay  for  some  real  or  al 
leged  moral  or  political  deficiency,  and  in  favor  of 
his  opponent,  who  was  ten  times  worse.  This  is  a 
peculiar  characteristic  of  democracy  noted  as  far 
back  as  the  days  when  Aristides  was  banished  from 
Athens. 

Later,  Clay  attempted  to  prevent  the  Graves- 
Cilley  duel,  in  which  the  latter  was  killed.  He 
supposed  he  had  done  so,  but  they  stole  a  march 
on  Clay  while  he  lay  ill  in  bed.  vlt  was  unjustly 
charged  against  Clay  that  he  did  not  prevent  this 
meeting  when  he  had  the  opportunity. 


123 


X 


IT  required  the  accumulation  of  a  good  many  ac 
cidents  and  incidents  to  keep  Henry  Clay  out  of 
the  Presidency,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  one 
that  counted  for  most  and  lasted  longest  was  his 
conduct  in  securing  the  election  of  John  Quincy 
Adams  to  the  Presidency,  and  accepting  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  State  under  him.  This  is  what  his 
enemies  called  "  the  corrupt  bargain,"  and  it  was 
productive  of  remarkable  results  in  politics.  That 
there  never  was  a  corrupt  bargain,  nor  anything  like 
it,  is  now  accepted  as  certain,  as  undoubted  as  any 
fact  in  history.  Clay  said  there  was  not,  and  he 
never  lied.  Adams  said  there  was  not,  and  ''he 
couldn't  lie  if  he  tried."  Benton  said  there  was  not, 
and  politically  he  was  opposed  to  Clay  all  his  days. 
Moreover,  there  is  an  amount  of  cumulative  evidence, 
direct  and  indirect,  to  show  that  such  a  thing  was 
impossible.  Many  of  those  who  made  the  original 
charges  withdrew  them. 

This  was  all  well  known  in  Clay's  day.  There  was 
no  reasonable  man  who  believed  the  story  ;  but  at 
that  time  those  who  were  prominent  in  politics  were 
not  apt  to  be  reasonable,  and  certainly  the  Jacksonian 
party  was  reckless  with  language  and  careless  of 
facts  where  its  opponents  were  concerned.  The 
story,  however,  stuck  to  Clay  all  his  days  and 
wounded  him  more  than  anything  else  that  occurred 
in  all  his  career,  and  he  spent  many  years  in  collect 
ing  evidence  to  prove  what  no  honest  man  denied 
and  what  only  implacable  foes  refused  to  accept. 

124 


"THE   CORRUPT   BARGAIN" 

An  innocent  woman  may  be  accused  of  unchastity 
so  frequently  that  socially,  so  far  as  her  reputa 
tion  is  concerned,  it  is  the  same  as  if  the  tales  were 
true.  So  with  Clay.  The  story  was  repeated  so 
often  that  it  had  all  the  political  effect  of  a  true  story, 
and  did  him  great  injury. 

The  story  of  his  first  campaign  for  the  Presidency 
properly  belongs  to  the  chapter  dealing  with  his 
Presidential  aspirations,  but,  as  it  is  inseparable  from 
the  "  corrupt  bargain"  story,  it  will  be  given  here. 
When  Clay  first  announced  himself  a  candidate  for 
the  Presidency,  he  expected  Adams,  Crawford,  and 
possibly  Calhoun  to  be  his  chief  competitors.  He 
seems  to  have  felt  his  chances  of  success  problem 
atical,  for  at  no  time  in  letters  or  speeches,  after 
the  campaign  was  fairly  under  way,  does  he  express 
that  confidence  which  he  maintained  on  all  other 
occasions.  His  notion  probably  was  that  the  con 
test  would  go  into  the  House,  and  there  he  would 
have  as  good  a  chance  as  any  one,  owing  to  his  long 
service  in  that  body.  Calhoun  was  on  the  roll  for  a 
short  time,  but  withdrew  to  take  the  Vice-Presidency. 
What  put  Clay's  aspirations  to  sleep  was  the  rising 
star  of  Jackson.  Nothing  in  our  history  up  to  this 
time  seemed  so  astonishing  as  that  the  soldier  un 
trained  in  civil  affairs  should  aspire  to  the  chief 
magistracy.  At  first  the  notion  was  received  with 
incredulity,  then  with  laughter,  and  finally  with 
great  enthusiasm.  The  military  hero  has  ever  cast 
a  glamour  over  the  human  race,  and  with  all  our 
own  boasted  love  of  liberty,  we  have  made  a  Presi 
dent  out  of  every  war  we  have  waged.  When  Clay 
heard  of  Jackson's  ambitions,  he  was  at  first  amused, 
then  disgusted,  and  at  last  alarmed  when  he  found 
that  Old  Hickory  could  count  on  some  of  the  States 
which  he  had  confidently  expected  for  himself. 

The  Congressional  caucus  had  nominated  Craw- 
125 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

ford,  the  first  great  machine  politician  in  national 
affairs  ;  but  as  only  his  partisans,  being  less  than  a 
majority,  attended  the  caucus,  this  counted  for  little, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  candidacy  which  had 
been  so  carefully  nursed  for  so  many  years  ended 
disastrously.  Adams  was  the  administration  candi 
date  and  Clay  a  free  lance.  When  the  fight  was 
fairly  on,  it  was  seen  that  Adams  and  Jackson  had 
the  lead,  and  the  race  developed  into  a  fight  for 
third  place,  since  only  the  three  highest  candidates 
could  be  voted  for,  under  the  Constitution,  when 
the  House  came  to  decide  the  matter. 

And  now  the  goddess  of  Fortune,  who  had  so 
closely  attended  Clay  from  his  birth,  turned  fickle. 
In  New  York,  where  Clay  ought  to  have  received 
nearly  one-half  of  the  electors  (electors  being  chosen 
by  the  Legislature),  he  received  only  four.  When 
they  came  to  vote,  it  was  seen  that  Clay  was  a 
defeated  man,  and  Adams  got  most  of  the  votes. 
The  fight  for  third  place  did  not  interest  these  gen 
tlemen,  who  were  intent  only  in  saving  the  Presi 
dency  for  Adams,  if  possible.  As  all  the  candi 
dates  were  avowed  Republicans  and  followers  of 
Jefferson,  there  was  plenty  of  chance  for  electors  to 
use  their  preferences  without  violating  party  spirit. 
What  finally  put  Clay  out  of  the  running  was  the 
action  of  the  Louisiana  Legislature.  On  the  day 
when  electors  were  chosen,  a  number  of  his  friends 
were  absent,  and  the  electors  were  divided  between 
Adams  and  Jackson. 

The  electoral  vote  was :  Jackson,  99  ;  Adams, 
84  ;  Crawford,  41  ;  Clay,  37.  It  can  be  seen  that 
if  Louisiana  had  stood  firm  for  Clay,  as  had  been 
arranged  and  expected,  he  would  have  been  third 
on  the  list.  Clay  carried  only  the  States  of  Ken 
tucky,  Ohio,  and  Missouri,  and  four  votes  from  New 
York.  In  those  days,  the  voting  extended  over  a 

126 


"THE   CORRUPT   BARGAIN" 

considerable  period  of  time,  so  that  the  result  was 
anticipated  long  before  the  last  electors  were  chosen. 

Clay  does  not  seem  to  have  been  greatly  disap 
pointed  over  this  result.  While  early  in  the  contest 
he  had  been  able  to  figure  out  how  he  might  be 
victorious,  the  march  of  events  had  been  steadily 
against  him.  As  no  one  of  the  candidates  had  a 
majority,  the  election  of  President  was  thrown  into 
the  House  of  Representatives,  where  each  State 
delegation  had  a  single  vote.  The  curious  anomaly 
about  this  provision  of  the  Constitution  is  that  the 
choice  is  made,  not  by  true  House  chosen  in  the 
Presidential  year,  when  it  might  fairly  be  supposed 
to  represent  popular  sentiment,  but  by  the  House 
elected  over  two  years  previously,  which,  histori 
cally,  has  been  generally  very  different  in  political 
complexion  from  the  one  elected  in  the  Presidential 
year.  There  were  twenty-four  States,  and  the  vote 
of  thirteen  delegations  was  necessary  to  a  choice. 

Crawford  had  recently  been  stricken  with  paralysis, 
and  though  he  lived  many  years,  he  was  before 
long  permanently  retired  from  active  politics.  The 
contest  was,  therefore,  really  narrowed  down  to 
Adams  and  Jackson,  and  it  was  evident  that  Clay's 
influence  would  have  a  determining  effect  on  the 
result.  Of  course,  the  members  were  free  to  do  as 
they  chose,  but  Clay  had  been  Speaker  so  long 
and  was  so  intimate  with  members  that  no  one 
doubted  his  influence  would  turn  the  scale.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  did.  Immediately  there  was  co 
quetting  of  Clay  on  both  sides.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  Adams  made  any  advances  of  the  sort  which 
politicians  usually  make.  He  was  too  stiff  for  that, 
and  he  could  not  have  done  so  very  well  had  he 
tried.  Indeed,  he  had  serious  doubts  whether  he 
ought  to  take  the  place,  as  he  was  not  the  favorite. 
Others  did  so  for  him,  though  in  a  very  cautious 

127 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

way,  since  Clay  was  not  a  man  to  be  approached 
with  a  direct  offer.  The  Adams  people  felt  de 
pressed,  seeing  that  Clay  had  attacked  the  admin 
istration  so  bitterly  in  the  South  American  matter, 
and  had  accused  Monroe  and  Adams  of  being  will 
ing  to  accept  a  minister  from  the  devil,  if  provided 
with  credentials,  rather  than  from  a  struggling  re 
public  of  the  South.  This,  of  course,  was  hyper 
bole  ;  but  Clay  was  genuine  in  his  efforts  for  the 
South  Americans,  and  not  wholly,  if  at  all,  moved 
by  spite. 

In  consequence,  Jackson  and  his  friends,  who  had 
been  incensed  over  Clay's  speech  accusing  Jackson, 
all  at  once  became  very  cordial.  They  were  very- 
willing  to  forgive  and  forget,  if  only  Clay  would  be 
for  Jackson.  The  emissary  used  on  this  occasion 
was  James  Buchanan,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  had 
conducted  the  Jackson  campaign  in  his  own  State 
and  was  a  friend  of  Clay.  He  called  on  the  latter, 
in  the  presence  of  a  friend,  began  a  discussion  of 
the  situation,  and  suggested  that  the  West  ought 
to  have  the  Presidency  ;  looking  directly  at  Clay,  he 
remarked  that  if  Jackson  were  chosen  he  would 
select  a  magnificent  Cabinet,  and  could  find  a 
Secretary  of  State  without  going  out  of  the  room 
wherein  they  were  then  seated.  This  was  plain  talk 
and  Clay  perfectly  understood  it,  but  turned  it  off 
by  saying  that  the  only  man  in  the  room  fit  for  the 
place  was  Buchanan  himself.  The  interview  came 
to  nothing,  much  to  Buchanan's  chagrin.  In  later 
years  Clay  was  minded  to  tell  this  story,  but 
Buchanan  always  begged  him  not  to  do  so,  as  it 
would  ruin  him  (Buchanan).  It  is  characteristic 
of  the  magnanimity  of  Clay  that  he  kept  his  peace 
when  he  might  have  called  a  witness  who  would 
have  been  obliged  to  confess  that  he  was  trying 
to  make  a  corrupt  bargain  indeed.  Clay,  how- 

128 


"THE   CORRUPT   BARGAIN" 

ever,  told  the  story  to  his  biographer,  who  duly  re 
corded  it. 

Foiled  in  getting  Clay  under  their  banner  by  direct 
means,  the  Jackson  men  resorted  to  a  bit  of  subter 
fuge  which  is  probably  the  meanest  in  our  history, 
as  it  was  one  of  the  most  successful,  not  so  much  in 
helping  Jackson  for  the  moment  as  in  injuring  Clay. 
When  it  appeared  that  Clay  was  certain  to  throw  his 
influence  for  Adams,  a  desperate  effort  was  made  to 
frighten  him  out  of  that  position.  An  anonymous 
letter  appeared  in  the  Columbian  Observer,  of 
Philadelphia,  in  which  the  author,  who  was  said 
to  be  a  member  of  Congress,  announced  the  exist 
ence  of  a  foul  plot,  in  the  fact  that  Clay  had  made  a 
bargain  with  Adams  whereby  the  former  was  to  be 
Secretary  of  State  under  the  latter.  It  was  almost 
equal  in  infamy  to  the  Burr  conspiracy  to  beat 
Jefferson,  and  every  art  used  to  have  it  appear  that 
the  story  was  true,  and  that  the  bargain  was  reeking 
with  "  unholy  corruption,"  a  favorite  expression  of 
the  time. 

It  may  well  be  supposed  that  Clay  was  incensed 
by  the  publication,  which  was,  by  prearrangement, 
copied  far  and  near.  It  was  the  first  assault  upon 
his  honor,  and  he  resented  it  with  all  the  impetuosity 
of  a  Virginian  and  Kentuckian  combined.  Shortly 
before  he  had  been  amused  at  his  remarkable  popu 
larity.  Every  one  was  telling  him  how  sorry  they 
were  that  he  was  not  one  of  the  three  to  be  voted  on 
in  the  House  ;  and  though  they  may  have  been  sin 
cere  in  this,  probably  it  was  also  to  curry  favor  with 
him  in  making  the  choice  between  Adams  and  Jack 
son,  for  he  writes  rather  sardonically,  "  I  am  enjoying, 
while  alive,  the  posthumous  honors  which  are  usually 
awarded  to  the  venerated  dead." 

It  was  easy  to  praise  Clay  when  he  was  dead  as  a 
candidate,  but  it  is  possible,  if  he  had  made  a  better 
9  129 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

showing  in  the  Electoral  College,  even  if  he  had  been 
third  on  the  list,  he  might  have  been  chosen,  since 
few  liked  Adams,  no  matter  how  much  they  respected 
him,  while  the  Jackson  experiment  did  not  seem  a 
very  hopeful  one,  although  he  was  at  the  head  of 
the  poll. 

Clay's  immediate  reply  to  the  anonymous  publica 
tion  was  not  only  a  sharp  denial,  but  an  assertion  that 
the  letter  was  a  forgery,  as  he  could  not  believe  a 
member  of  the  House  would  make  any  such  state 
ment.  However,  if  it  were  genuine,  he  denounced 
the  author  as  "a  base  and  infamous  calumniator, 
a  dastard  and  liar ;  and  if  he  dare  reveal  himself 
and  avow  his  name,  I  will  hold  him  responsible,  as 
I  here  admit  myself  to  be,  to  all  the  laws  which 
govern  and  regulate  men  of  honor." 

This  was  sharp  language  and  an  implied  challenge 
to  a  duel.  Knowing  Clay's  impetuous  nature,  his 
high  sense  of  honor,  and  his  innocence  of  the 
charge,  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  the  intensity 
of  his  feelings  thus  displayed.  It  was,  however,  a 
mistake  to  publicly  issue  a  challenge  to  an  unknown 
man,  and  Clay  later  regretted  that  portion  of  the 
letter,  especially  as  it  became  impossible  for  him 
to  make  good  his  threat. 

Very  soon  appeared  a  card  announcing  that 
George  Kremer,  a  member  from  Pennsylvania,  was 
the  author  of  the  letter,  and  that  gentleman  de 
clared  himself  prepared  to  prove  his  charges.  This 
made  the  sensation  more  mysterious  than  ever.  It 
was  considered  impossible  that  the  good-natured 
Pennsylvania  Dutchman  could  have  written  the 
original  letter  or  have  been  in  any  position  to  prove 
the  charges,  even  if  they  had  been  true.  Probably 
there  was  not  a  man  in  the  whole  House  less  likely 
to  have  been  the  author  of  such  a  communication, 
which  seems  to  have  been  the  exact  reason  he  was 

130 


"THE   CORRUPT   BARGAIN" 

chosen  as  a  stool-pigeon  by  the  Jacksonian  interest 
It  appears  that  poor  Kremer  had  his  vanity  flattered 
until  he  signed  the  letter,  which  was  written  ap 
parently  by  John  H.  Eaton,  the  bosom  friend  and 
companion  in  arms  of  Jackson.  It  seems  that 
Kremer  did  not  even  read  the  letter,  certainly  not 
all  of  it,  or  else  he  did  not  understand  the  nature 
of  his  charges.  He  later  gave  testimony  to  this 
effect  in  private,  and  it  would  have  fared  ill  with 
him  and  others  if,  most  unfortunately,  the  succeed 
ing  events  had  not  seemed  to  confirm  the  story. 

Clay  was  now  more  wroth  than  ever.  He  bit 
terly  regretted  his  implied  challenge,  because  it  was 
absurd  to  think  of  challenging  the  Dutchman  who 
was  so  manifestly  a  dupe,  while  to  fight  the  real 
men  who  were  behind  the  plot  was  impossible. 
So  one  result  of  this  imbroglio  was  that  Clay,  who 
had  before  this  fought  numerous  duels,  or  had  been 
ready  to  do  so,  was  now  branded  as  a  coward  by  a 
certain  set  of  politicians,  not  one  of  whom  would 
have  thought  of  going  on  the  field,  and  who  pro 
fessed  to  believe  that  duelling  was  a  damnable 
practice.  Still,  they  made  a  more  or  less  effective 
argument  of  the  fact  that  Clay  was  a  bluffer,  and 
that  it  was  a  guilty  conscience  which  prevented  him 
from  taking  the  poor  Dutchman  out  and  slaughtering 
him.  Probably  this  of  itself  was  not  very  effective, 
but  there  were  other  things  to  make  Clay's  troubles 
cumulative. 

Clay  demanded  an  investigation,  and  a  committee 
was  appointed,  every  member  of  which  had  been 
opposed  to  his  candidacy.  Mr.  Kremer  arose  and 
announced  that  if  he  could  not  make  good  his 
charges  he  deserved  reprobation  and  castigation 
and  expulsion,  or  words  to  that  effect.  It  seems 
that  the  stool-pigeon  was  relying  on  the  brave 
promises  of  those  who  had  shoved  him  forward  in 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

the  controversy.  When  the  committee  met,  its 
first  act  was  to  send  for  Kremer  and  ask  his  testi 
mony.  There  is  something  ludicrous,  or  pitiful,  or 
disgusting,  or  all  three,  in  what  followed.  Kremer 
evidently  went  to  his  superiors  for  the  testimony  he 
was  to  give,  and  was  thrown  on  his  own  resources, 
for  they  had  none  to  give  him.  Kremer  dared  not 
even  go  before  the  committee,  but  sent  a  letter 
which  may  have  been  partly  his  own  composi 
tion,  but  seems  to  have  had  other  and  stronger  pens 
behind  it.  In  it  he  turned  in  flight,  saying  he  was  not 
accuser  of  the  Speaker,  that  he  could  not  be  held 
answerable  in  the  House  for  what  occurred  out  of  it, 
forgetting  that  he  had  already  avowed  responsibility 
in  the  House,  and  that  he  would  make  good  his 
charges.  He  also  made  the  baby  plea  that  the 
Speaker  was  a  man  in  great  authority  and  power, 
while  he  was  a  poor  member,  and  that  to  enter  on  an 
unequal  contest  would  be  unjust.  There  is  a  rather 
specious  plea  in  this  which  seems  shrewdly  intended 
to  catch  the  eye  and  ear  of  the  Jacksonians  and  of 
those  doubters  who  really  wondered  whether  Clay 
was  guilty  or  not. 

The  committee  reported  to  the  House  the  state 
of  the  case  and  the  matter  dropped  there.  Still,  the 
Jacksonians  insisted  that  the  charges  were  true,  and 
Clay  was  in  an  ugly  mood.  Their  object  had  been 
to  put  him  in  position  so  that  he  could  not  throw 
his  influence  to  Adams  without  seeming  to  admit 
the  truth  of  the  bargain  story,  but  they  had  no  idea 
that,  even  if  he  did  secure  the  election  of  Adams, 
he  would  go  the  full  length  of  their  concocted  plot. 

Clay's  position  with  relation  to  the  succession  was, 
and  long  had  been,  one  of  great  difficulty  and 
delicacy.  He  was  now  in  the  role  of  President- 
maker,  and  it  was  certain  that,  no  matter  what  action 
he  took,  he  would  be  undevoutly  cursed  by  the 

132 


"THE   CORRUPT   BARGAIN" 

friends  of  the  other  two  candidates.  In  spite  of  his 
affliction,  Crawford  did  not  give  up,  but  sent  friends 
to  Clay  with  propositions  that  were  disgusting  in 
their  brutality.  Clay  was  assured  that  he  could  be 
Secretary  of  State,  and  that  Crawford  only  wanted 
a  single  term,  the  insinuation  being  that  Clay  could 
have  the  succession.  Jackson's  friends  continued  to 
haunt  him.  In  truth,  Clay  did  not  care  for  any  of 
the  candidates.  Crawford  he  considered  an  impos 
sibility,  and  with  Jackson  he  had  not  been  on  good 
terms  since  the  speech  on  the  Florida  affair,  and  he 
considered  that  it  would  be  the  "  greatest  calamity 
that  could  happen"  if  Old  Hickory  should  become 
President.  There  was  left  only  Adams. 

We  have  seen  how  Clay  quarrelled  continually 
with  Adams  at  Ghent,  though  it  was  more  a  matter 
of  difference  in  temperament  than  anything  else  that 
made  them  antagonistic.  Clay  wanted  to  be  Secre 
tary  of  State  under  Monroe,  and  when  Adams  got 
that  prize  he  sulked  a  bit  and  then  went  into  oppo 
sition.  All  through  the  diary  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
at  this  period,  we  can  see  that  the  breach  was 
widening  between  him  and  Clay.  The  speech  on 
the  South  American  mission  had  been  a  defiance 
of  both  Monroe  and  Adams,  and  the  Speaker  had 
sneered  at  the  Secretary  of  State  on  many  occasions, 
concerning  which  Adams  notes  that  Clay  has  " neither 
fairness  nor  generosity"  in  his  opposition  to  him. 
Again,  he  says,  "Clay  attacks  me  without  scruple  or 
delicacy."  And  again,  "His  [Clay's]  morals,  pub 
lic  and  private,  are  loose,  but  he  has  all  the  virtues 
indispensable  to  a  popular  man." 

After  this  had  gone  on  for  some  time  a  mutual 
friend  brought  about  something  of  an  accommoda 
tion,  but  Clay  was  slightly  annoyed  over  the  fact 
that  Adams  had  opposed  him  in  a  financial  claim 
against  the  government.  He  wanted,  as  we  have 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

seen,  half  an  outfit,  as  the  term  went,  for  his  services 
in  negotiating  the  commercial  treaty  in  London  after 
leaving  Ghent  This  is  a  sum  of  money  granted  to 
a  minister,  when  sent  to  his  post,  to  cover  extraordi 
nary  expenses.  Adams  objected  because  he  had 
already  had  one  outfit  for  the  whole  mission,  and 
thought  he  ought  not  to  have  half  another.  The 
Attorney-General  decided  against  Adams,  though  it 
was  not  in  his  province,  and  Monroe  allowed  the 
claim,  the  entire  facts  of  which  Clay  was  fully  aware. 

Adams  gradually  grew  nervous  as  the  time  ap 
proached  for  the  decision,  but  he  positively  refused 
to  make  any  overtures  on  his  own  part,  but 
many  of  his  friends  did  for  him.  Benton  says  that, 
before  Christmas,  Clay  had  told  him  he  would  sup 
port  Adams,  and  Benton  gave  this  out  in  an  inter 
view  while  travelling  in  Virginia.  While  an  intense 
opponent  of  Clay,  and  for  a  time  believing  in  the 
corrupt  bargain,  Benton  finally  made  up  his  mind 
that  he  was  wrong  and  that  Clay's  action  in  the 
matter  was  without  stain. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  campaign  a  subscription 
dinner  was  given  to  Clay  by  his  friends,  to  which 
Adams  subscribed,  but  did  not  attend,  as  he  disliked 
that  kind  of  thing,  while  Clay  was  fond  of  almost 
any  opportunity  to  air  his  views  and  make  friends. 
Finally,  in  March,  1824,  at  the  outset  of  the  can 
vass,  Adams  did  dine  at  General  Jackson's  with 
many  notables,  Clay  being  also  present.  Clay  took 
this  occasion  to  talk  politics  and  a  good  deal  about 
the  tariff,  though  it  was  desired  to  keep  the  succes 
sion  out  of  the  affair,  as  all  the  candidates  were 
present.  That  night  Adams  recorded  in  his  diary, — 

"  He  [Clay]  is  so  ardent,  dogmatical,  and  over 
bearing  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  preserve  the 
temper  of  friendly  society  with  him." 

Again  we  see  here  two  warring  temperaments. 


"THE   CORRUPT   BARGAIN" 

Adams  himself  was  waspish  and  opinionated,  and  it 
is  interesting  to  read  his  strictures  on  Clay,  who  was 
the  most  lovable  of  men.  The  two  men  flashed  at 
every  point  of  contact.  At  this  dinner  Clay,  in  ? 
spirit  of  bravado,  told  Adams  that  he  had  been 
obliged  to  give  him  a  drubbing  in  an  argument  that 
day  before  the  Supreme  Court,  but  Adams  did  not 
relish  the  humor  of  the  situation. 

This  friction  between  Adams  and  Clay,  which  had 
been  of  ten  years'  standing,  was  well  known,  and  the 
friends  of  the  other  candidates  counted  much  upon 
it.  They  thought  that  Clay's  personality  was  such 
that  he  would  never  support  a  man  whom  he  openly 
disliked.  In  this  they  were  mistaken,  for  Clay  was 
too  much  of  a  patriot  to  be  moved  by  such  consid 
erations.  He  was  for  Adams  because  he  repre 
sented  Clay's  own  views  on  the  tariff  and  internal 
improvements.  In  such  a  position  Clay  could  not 
really  hesitate  in  what  he  called  a  choice  of  evils. 

He  broke  his  silence  on  Sunday  night,  January  9, 
1825,  when  he  went  to  see  Adams  and  told  him 
frankly  that  he  intended  to  support  him,  and  also 
that  he  wished  at  some  time  to  talk  with  him  about 
public  policies,  as  the  only  interest  he  had  in  the 
situation.  He  had  waited  so  long  because  he  wanted 
to  get  a  complete  view  of  the  situation  and  perform 
decently  the  obsequies  on  his  own  dead  ambitions. 
Those  who  have  perused  the  twelve  large  volumes 
of  Adams's  published  diary,  and  know  how  he  poured 
out  into  it  his  whole  soul,  never  expecting  that  any 
other  eyes  but  his  would  see  it ;  how  he  made  a 
minute  of  the  things  which  he  did  that  he  ought 
not  to  have  done,  and  also  wrote  down  his  sins  of 
omission,  must  be  sure  that  if  there  had  been  any 
talk  about  the  bargain  he  would  in  some  way  have 
mentioned  it.  The  record  is  blank  in  this  respect, 
except  afterwards  to  indignantly  deny  the  accusation. 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

Clay  did  support  Adams  and  he  was  elected. 
That  part  of  the  bargain  story  was  corroborated, 
though  the  Jacksonians  had  believed  he  would 
never  dare  do  it ;  nor,  indeed,  did  they  expect  or 
dare  to  hope  that  the  Secretaryship  of  State  would 
be  offered  to  Clay  or  that  he  would  accept  it.  That 
was  exactly  what  happened.  Adams  was  made  of 
stern  stuff.  He  loved  popular  approval,  but  he  was 
no  demagogue,  and  he  scorned  those  who  used  their 
arts.  He  frankly  offered  the  position  of  premier  to 
Clay,  who  took  it  under  advisement  and,  on  the 
urgent  advice  of  his  friends,  most  unfortunately 
accepted.  The  position  was  certain  to  bring  him  no 
political  strength,  and  he  must  have  known  the 
storm  of  obloquy  that  would  follow.  He  did  not, 
however,  suppose  there  would  be  anything  like  the 
virulence  that  was  exhibited,  nor  that  it  would  mark 
a  turning-point  in  politics.  He  affected  to  believe 
that  the  storm  would  soon  blow  over,  and  assured 
Adams  that  there  would  be  no  trouble  about  his 
confirmation,  as,  in  fact,  there  was  none. 

No  sooner  did  it  leak  out  that  Clay  was  to  have 
the  position  than  the  batteries  were  brought  to  bear 
on  Adams.  Friends  of  the  latter  assured  him  that 
it  was  a  mistake  and  the  opposition  made  threats, 
but  none  of  these  availed  anything.  Adams  had 
made  up  his  mind,  and  there  was  an  end  on't. 

Well  had  it  been  for  Clay  had  he  never  accepted 
the  post.  He  was  put  on  the  defensive  for  the  rest 
of  his  career,  and  that  was  especially  irksome  to  him. 
For  many  years  he  was  kept  busy  defending  him 
self  and  calling  to  witness  many  friends,  even  among 
the  opposition,  to  the  effect  that  he  had  privately 
expressed  his  opinion  that  he  would  support  Adams 
long  before  the  corrupt  bargain  story  was  con 
cocted.  Among  the  papers  he  left  is  a  letter  he  wrote 
to  one  of  the  Gratz  family,  to  which  his  descendants 

136 


"THE   CORRUPT   BARGAIN" 

were  allied  later  by  marriage,  asking  one  of  them  to 
write  to  Frank  P.  Blair,  the  elder,  whether  he  did 
not  remember  dining  with  Clay  and  others  on  a 
certain  occasion,  either  in  the  summer  or  fall  of 
1824,  when  Clay  announced  that  he  would  vote  for 
Adams.  "  I  cannot  but  persuade  myself,"  he  wrote, 
"that  Blair's  sense  of  justice  and  the  remnant  of 
regard  which  I  hope  he  still  cherishes  for  me  will 
induce  him  also  to  subjoin  a  statement  of  the  con 
versation,  if  he  recollects  it.  Will  you  speak  to  him 
on  the  subject?" 

Blair  was  at  this  time  one  of  the  most  prominent 
men  in  Kentucky  politics.  He  was  a  prosperous 
planter,  had  a  position  in  the  Supreme  Court  at 
Frankfort,  Kentucky,  and  was  one  of  the  editors 
of  the  Argus,  a  leading  Jacksonian  paper.  Mr. 
Gratz  sent  the  letter  to  Blair,  who  wrote  back  that 
he  remembered  the  conversation  very  well  and  fully 
corroborated  Mr.  Clay's  version  of  the  incident,  and 
he  would  answer  on  any  proper  demand,  but  would 
not  do  so  voluntarily.  It  would  appear  that,  for 
some  reason,  Clay  never  asked  him  to  do  this, 
and  vindication  never  came  from  that  quarter; 
while  Blair  later  removed  to  Washington  and,  as 
editor  of  the  Globe,  the  chief  Jacksonian  organ, 
became  one  of  Clay's  bitterest  political  enemies  and 
a  leading  member  of  the  "  Kitchen  Cabinet." 

History  has  fully  justified  the  purity  of  Clay's  and 
Adams's  motives,  but  it  has  not  sustained  them  in 
their  conduct,  either  from  a  political  or  a  practical 
point  of  view.  It  was  neither  politically  right  nor 
expedient  for  Clay  to  take  the  place  under  the  cir 
cumstances,  as  he  later  found  to  his  cost.  Once 
more  the  simile  of  the  woman  whose  virtue  is  con 
stantly  assailed  is  apposite.  Clay  never  fully  recov 
ered  from  the  bargain  story,  which  was  enough  of 
itself  to  defeat  him  in  1832. 

'37 


XI 

SECRETARY    OF   STATE 

CLAY'S  only  service  in  the  Cabinet  was  not  im 
portant  in  its  accomplishments.  He  had  already 
refused  several  portfolios  in  the  Cabinet  before  he 
entered  that  of  Adams,  and  was  to  refuse  more, 
and  during  the  current  administration  he  was  offered 
a  position  on  the  Supreme  Bench,  which  he  declined, 
as  Adams  had  done  on  a  previous  occasion.  Clay 
found  the  Cabinet  the  most  irksome  position  in  his 
whole  career.  He  was  not  intended  for  administrative 
duty.  Routine  was  against  his  nature.  To  be  sure, 
he  was  methodical  in  his  own  habits,  always  kept 
his  papers  safely,  and,  when  writing  home  to  Ash 
land  for  some  letter  he  wanted,  could  give  the  exact 
pigeon-hole  where  it  was  to  be  found  ;  but  he  was 
at  his  best  when  leading  a  victorious  political  army, 
or  even  when  marshalling  the  opposition  ;  his  place 
was  certainly  in  the  field  and  'not  in  a  bureau.  He 
made  a  good  officer,  but  there  was  not  much  that 
he  could  accomplish  at  the  time,  except  the  one 
thing  that  turned  out  a  complete  fiasco  and  finally 
brought  him  once  more  to  the  "field  of  honor." 
f  He  negotiated  treaties  with  several  European  powers, 
/  secured  payment  from  Great  Britain  for  slaves  car 
ried  off,  and  failed  to  get  a  treaty  by  which  slaves 
escaping  to  Canada  were  to  be  surrendered,  though 
for  this  boon  he  offered  to  return  deserters  from 
the  army  and  navy  of  Great  Britain.  If  there  are 
those  who  think  this  a  concession  to  the  slave  power, 
it  should  be  remembered  that  it  could  not  have 

138 


SECRETARY   OF    STATE 

been    done   without    the    consent   of    the    Puritan 
Adams. 

The  Panama  Congress  was  dear  to  the  heart  of 
Clay.  It  fired  his  imagination,  as  it  did  that  of 
Elaine  more  than  sixty  years  later.  It  was  a  vindi 
cation  of  his  course  when  he  attacked  Monroe. 
By  this  time  all  the  South  and  Central  American 
states,  except  Brazil,  had  thrown  off  the  European 
yoke  and  Mexico  had  declared  its  independence. 
Bolivar  had  long  wanted  a  Congress  in  which  all 
of  the  American  republics  should  meet  and  confer 
upon  many  topics  which  seemed  essential  under  the 
new  order  of  things.  The  invitation  was  sent  to 
this  country  and  accepted  with  avidity.  And  now 
Clay  was  to  be  a  partner  in  a  proceeding  which  he 
had  so  roundly  condemned  in  Monroe  at  the  time 
of  the  roving  commission  which  was  sent  South 
when  Clay  wanted  a  minister.  Whether  or  not  he 
advised  with  the  President  we  do  not  know,  but 
it  is  strange  if  he  did  not  know  of  the  message 
which  Adams  sent  to  Congress  on  the  subject  and 
advise  him  against  his  action.  Or,  perhaps,  he  felt 
that,  as  he  had  been  worsted  in  his  fight,  it  was  the 
proper  course  to  pursue.  Adams  informed  Con 
gress  that  he  had  accepted  the  invitation,  and  asked 
an  appropriation  for  the  commission.  At  this  time 
the  Senate  was  in  opposition  to  Adams,  and  that 
body  considered  its  dignity  offended,  or  pretended 
that  it  did,  because  Adams  had  not  consulted  it 
in  advance,  and,  instead  of  giving  the  appropriation, 
asked  what  the  Congress  was  going  to  discuss.  The 
Senators  knew  well  enough,  but  proposed  to  make 
it  as  uncomfortable  for  Clay  and  Adams  as  was 
possible.  There  was  a  catch  in  this  subject.  Among 
the  questions  that  the  invitation  mentioned  for  the 
programme  of  the  Congress,  aside  from  international 
law,  questions  of  contraband,  piracy,  the  position  of 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  which  still  adhered  to  Spain, 
was  one  that  applied  to  Hayti. 

Now,  if  there  was  one  subject  that  would  set  the 
average  Southern  man  wild  it  was  to  mention  the 
black  republic  or,  more  properly  speaking,  des 
potism  that  had  been  erected  on  the  island  of  San 
Domingo  after  the  most  horrible  butcheries.  Women 
in  the  South  could  scarcely  sleep  o'  nights  for  think 
ing  of  the  horrors  that  occurred,  and  the  idea  that 
Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  might  become  independent 
black  or  mulatto  republics  was  unthinkable,  because 
it  would  mean  the  possibility  of  the  same  thing  in 
this  country.  When  Adams  sent  the  answer,  the 
Haytian  question  was  discreetly  omitted,  although 
Clay  himself  had  declared  that  we  must  soon  rec 
ognize  her  as  a  nation.  We  had  been  doing  busi 
ness  with  Hayti  for  years,  but  never  had  maintained 
a  diplomatic  or  consular  officer  there,  and  it  is  quite 
likely  that  Clay  had  the  question  dropped  from  the 
list,  as  he  knew  the  temper  of  the  South  on  the 
subject.  It  was  quite  true  that  in  some  of  the  South 
American  republics  there  were  negro  generals, 
statesmen,  and  diplomatic  officers,  and  the  notion 
of  meeting  them  on  a  plane  of  equality  was  gall  and 
wormwood.  Benton  detected  the  omission,  and  made 
one  of  his  fiery  speeches  on  the  subject.  Indeed, 
the  ultra  slave-holding  Senators  had  little  interest  in 
the  Panama  Congress. 

After  a  display  of  political  fireworks  had  been 
set  off  and  much  valuable  time  consumed,  the  money 
was  finally  appropriated  and  the  Commission  sailed, 
only  to  find  that  the  whole  scheme  was  a  fiasco. 
Only  a  few  delegates  turned  up  and  these  adjourned, 
and  the  whole  subject  was  postponed  for  several 
generations.  It  was  during  these  debates  that  the 
charges  of  John  Randolph  were  made  and  the  duel 
took  place  as  narrated  elsewhere  in  this  book. 

140 


SECRETARY   OF   STATE 

It  was  evident  that  Jackson  was  not  satisfied  with 
his  first  defeat,  and  was  to  make  another  effort. 
As  Clay  had  not  yet  succeeded  in  getting  the  sort 
of  vindication  he  craved,  he  seized  upon  a  statement 
of  Jackson,  denounced  him  publicly,  and  de 
manded  that  he  give  his  authority.  The  story- 
credited  to  Jackson  was  that  he  had  said  at  a  din 
ner,  when  many  persons  were  present,  that  he  could 
have  been  elected  President  if  he  had  promised 
Clay  to  remove 'Adams  from  the  Cabinet,  intimating 
that  Clay  wanted  to  have  the  Secretaryship  of  State. 
That  he  told  the  story  Jackson  could  not  deny,  and, 
in  reply,  gave  Buchanan  as  his  authority.  Buchanan 
utterly  denied  that  he  had  ever  told  Jackson  any 
thing  of  the  sort,  or  had  ever  thought  of  such  a  thing, 
seeing  that  it  had  never  happened.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Jackson  was  laboring  under  a  misapprehen 
sion,  or  had  forgotten  that  Buchanan  was  one  of 
his  own  warmest  supporters,  and  that  he  had  made 
the  overtures  to  Clay  already  mentioned.  Clay  now 
informed  Buchanan  that  he  proposed  to  tell  the 
story  of  that  affair,  but  he  was  persuaded  not  to  do 
so,  and  refrained  with  a  magnanimity  that  was  char 
acteristic  of  the  man.  In  fact,  while  Clay  was  a 
bitter  fighter,  he  was  the  most  magnanimous  of  men  ; 
though,  as  he  sometimes  rather  bitterly  remarked,  it 
all  seemed  to  be  on  his  side,  for  none  of  his  enemies 
ever  showed  him  the  slightest  consideration. 

Armed  with  letters  galore  from  friends  and  politi 
cal  enemies,  Clay  now  made  a  long  speech  at  Lex 
ington,  in  which  he  vindicated  his  course  once  more 
and  called  upon  Jackson  to  withdraw  his  charges, 
which  that  doughty  old  warrior  promptly  refused  to 
do.  He  knew  now  that  his  charges  could  not  be 
substantiated,  but  he  simply  pointed  to  the  fact 
that  Clay  had  elected  Adams  and  the  latter  had 
made  him  Secretary  of  State. 

141 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

This  was  probably  the  bitterest  hour  of  Clay's 
life.  He  could  stand  defeat  in  the  open  field.  He 
did  not  mind  going  down  in  the  halls  of  legislation, 
so  long  as  he  could  keep  his  colors  flying  ;  but  the 
assaults  upon  his  honor  deeply  grieved  him  and 
undermined  his  health,  so  that  for  a  time  it  was 
feared  he  was  about  to  go  into  a  decline.  President 
Adams  called  God  to  witness  that  there  had  never 
been  any  bargain,  and  it  is  supposed  that  many 
persons  of  the  opposition  must  have  believed  the 
testimony,  though  it  failed  utterly  to  convince  the 
Jacksonian  masses,  who  were  only  too  anxious — such 
is  human  nature — to  see  a  popular  man  besmirched. 

Clay  did  his  best  for  Adams  in  1828,  but  there 
never  was  much  doubt  as  to  the  result.  Jackson 
swept  the  country,  and  Clay  was  so  disgusted  that 
he  would  not  even  act  as  a  stop-gap,  and  resigned 
on  the  last  day  of  Adams's  administration.  He 
was  now  disgusted  with  politics  and  made  dire 
prophecies  of  what  would  happen  to  the  country 
under  Jackson,  whom  he  hated  all  the  more  because 
that  old  soldier  had  sent  a  man  to  take  charge  of 
the  State  Department  the  moment  the  signal-gun 
announced  that  Jackson  had  taken  the  oath.  In 
Clay's  opinion,  the  country  was  done  for.  We  were 
to  have  a  military  despotism,  and  all  the  woes  that 
befell  Rome  in  her  decadence  were  to  be  ours.  It 
is  impossible  not  to  note  in  his  utterances  at  the 
time  a  feeling  of  disappointment  that  was  tinged 
with  personal  griefs.  It  is  very  hard  for  us  to  think 
we  can  be  dispensed  with  in  this  world,  and  Clay 
thought  that  a  nation  which  preferred  Jackson  to 
himself  and  Adams  could  not  reasonably  be  expected 
to  have  a  happy  future. 

Clay  had  now  definitely  resolved  to  retire  from 
politics.  He  refused  election  to  the  House  and  to 
the  Legislature ;  was  sick  of  the  bickerings  and  injus- 

142 


^*, 


31  Jujtuf  181] . 


X.  t-M-W  *^cf  ^  H«,M«U.» 

i*^  «ct**»tM^-.3Ll  j^c^ 


F    PRESIDENT   JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS    TO    HENRY    CLAY    WHEN 
THE    LATTER   WAS   SECRETARY   OF   STATE 


(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Kentucky.     Photo 
graphed  especially  for  this  volume.) 


SECRETARY   OF   STATE 

tice,  and  glad  to  be  at  his  beloved  Ashland,  where 
he  rushed  into  farming  with  his  accustomed  ardor. 
He  had  thought,  while  in  Washington,  of  being  a 
candidate  in  1832,  but  now  told  his  wife  that  he 
would  no  longer  bother  with  public  affairs,  and, 
though  he  should  practise  some,  he  proposed  to  de 
vote  himself  largely  to  his  estate.  He  increased  his 
stock  in  every  way,  and  was  happy,  not  only  to  be 
at  rest,  but  to  receive  the  plaudits  of  his  friends,  and 
especially  of  his  neighbors.  He  made  trips  to  Ohio 
and  Tennessee  on  business  matters,  and  was  received 
with  the  highest  acclaim.  This  intoxication  was  too 
much  for  him,  and,  when  letters  began  to  come  from 
friends  of  high  standing  in  the  East,  saying  that  the 
country  needed  him,  the  demon  of  ambition  entered 
his  soul  once  more.  When  legislatures,  or  conven 
tions,  or  mass-meetings  had  begun  to  nominate  him 
for  the  succession  to  Jackson,  he  could  not  resist  the 
siren  song,  and  before  long  he  was  not  only  a  candi 
date,  but  was  even  willing  to  go  back  to  the  Senate, 
a  risk  which  no  candidate  should  take,  and  one  which 
proved  fatal  to  him  at  this  time.  It  seems  likely 
that  if  Clay  had  stayed  at  Ashland,  feeding  his  pigs 
and  raising  mules,  he  might  have  been  elected  in 
spite  of  the  corrupt  bargain  story ;  but  there  was  a 
vacancy  in  the  Senate,  and  he  was  so  willing  to  have 
the  honor  that  he  went  to  Frankfort  and  was  chosen 
by  a  rather  close  vote.  So,  leaving  the  shades  of 
Ashland,  he  once  more  set  out  to  Washington,  where 
he  was  to  battle  against  the  Apollyon  of  the  White 
House. 

Among  the  Clay  papers  preserved  by  the  family 
is  an  interesting  one  from  Adams  to  Clay  dealing 
with  the  Poinsett  matter.  Poinsett  was  minister  to 
Mexico,  and  had  much  trouble,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  there  were  so  many  persons  claiming  to  be 
President.  It  was  a  time  of  revolution,  and  Poinsett 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

got  unwittingly  into  trouble  by  recognizing  the 
government  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  entitled  to 
consideration.  Other  aspirants  sent  complaints  to 
this  country,  but  the  matter  was  finally  adjusted, 
though  Clay  at  first  thought  Poinsett  should  be  re 
called,  as  the  accompanying  letter  indicates. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  by  this  time  the  personal 
relations  between  Clay  and  Adams  were  the  warmest, 
and  continued  so  until  the  death  of  the  latter. 
When  the  men  came  to  know  each  other  better, 
they  found  they  had  been  mistaken  in  earlier  criti 
cisms.  The  letter  from  Quincy  is  interesting  both 
by  reason  of  the  chirography  and  as  showing  the 
cautiousness  of  Adams. 


144 


XII 

CLAY    ON    SLAVERY 

CLAY'S  views  on  slavery  have  been  misconstrued 
or  misunderstood  very  much,  according  to  the  critic's 
predilections  on  the  subject.  The  radicals  of  the 
South  considered  him  almost  an  abolitionist,  while 
the  radical  abolitionists  of  the  North  called  him  a 
trimmer,  a  wobbler,  and  a  timeserver,  who  professed 
to  abhor  slavery,  and  yet  served  its  every  interest 
in  the  hope  of  political  preferment.  Clay's  political 
views  and  actions  as  to  slavery  will  be  discussed  in 
another  chapter,  but  it  is  proper  here  to  investigate 
just  what  he  thought  of  the  domestic  system. 
There  is  no  question  that  he  abhorred  it.  He  said 
so  frequently,  and  showed  his  faith  by  manumitting 
his  own  slaves  at  his  death. 

Curiously  enough,  the  first  piece  of  property  he 
owned  after  he  came  into  the  world  was  a  slave  be 
queathed  to  him  by  his  maternal  grandfather.  What 
ever  became  of  this  legacy  is  not  known,  though  it 
is  probable,  in  view  of  other  events,  that  he  was 
carried  off  with  the  others  whom  Tarleton's  troopers 
stole  on  the  day  of  Henry's  father's  funeral.  Mrs. 
John  Clay  brought  her  husband  a  number  of 
slaves,  and  the  Reverend  John  is  said  to  have  dis 
posed  of  over  thirty  by  will,  though  most  of  them 
are  believed  to  have  been  carried  away  or  escaped, 
so  that  there  were  not  many  for  Mrs.  Clay  when  the 
will  was  probated.  In  fact,  the  family  estate  had 
been  scattered  by  the  war.  Mrs.  Clay's  father  was 
a  Tory,  but  she  and  Mr.  Clay  were  ardent  patriots. 
Their  homestead  in  Hanover  County  proved  an  easy 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

prey  to  Tarleton's  troopers,  and  during  the  war  it  is 
said  to  have  been  ravaged  many  times,  so  that,  when 
Henry's  father  died,  the  widow  had  considerable 
difficulty  in  getting  along,  in  spite  of  her  nominally 
large  estate.  The  country  was  greatly  impoverished, 
and  it  is  now  known  that  Clay,  in  speaking  of  his 
early  poverty,  was  telling  the  truth,  though  his 
position  was  not  different  from  that  of  many  other 
boys  whose  parents,  a  few  years  before,  had  been 
esteemed  prosperous. 

When  Clay's  mother  married  Watkins,  who  was 
ten  years  her  junior,  and  moved  to  Kentucky,  it  is 
said  to  have  been  the  advice  of  the  step-father  that 
Henry  be  left  in  Virginia  to  study  law.  What  he  had 
seen  on  his  own  estate  and  what  he  learned  at  Rich 
mond  must  have  made  a  profound  impression  upon 
him,  for  he  no  sooner  reached  Lexington  than  he 
plunged  into  the  election  which  was  held  in  1798 
to  decide  whether  the  Constitution  should  be  revised, 
the  question  of  gradual  emancipation  being  the  par 
amount  issue.  It  is  remarkable  to  find  Clay  not 
only  on  the  stump,  but  writing  articles  for  the  newspa 
pers  in  favor  of  gradual  emancipation,  although  his 
chief  patron  was  John  Breckinridge,  who  entirely  op 
posed  the  scheme.  The  emancipationists  won  their 
cause,  and,  but  for  the  excitement  over  the  Alien  and 
Sedition  laws,  resulting  in  the  famous  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  resolutions  of  1798,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  gradual  emancipation  would  have  been  adopted. 
Breckinridge  and  his  party,  though  greatly  in  the 
minority,  took  advantage  of  the  excitement  of  the 
hour  to  turn  the  attention  of  people  to  other  chan 
nels,  and  probably  to  play  on  the  prejudices  of  the 
hour,  so  that  the  subject  was  abandoned,  much  to 
Clay's  regret  then  and  afterwards.  In  his  famous 
"market-house"  speech  in  Lexington  in  1847,  Clay 
said, — 

146 


CLAY   ON   SLAVERY 

"  My  opinions  on  the  subject  of  slavery  are  well  known. 
They  have  the  merit,  if  it  be  one,  of  consistency,  uniformity, 
and  long  duration.  I  have  ever  regarded  slavery  as  a  great 
evil,  a  wrong — for  the  present,  I  fear,  an  irremediable  wrong — 
to  its  unfortunate  victims.  I  should  rejoice  if  not  a  slave 
breathed  the  air  or  was  within  the  limits  of  our  country. ' ' 

After  detailing  his  efforts  in  1798  in  favor  of 
gradual  emancipation,  which  proved  so  abortive, 
he  expresses  the  fear  that  there  is  little  chance  of 
soon  remedying  the  evil,  and  thinks  it  may  take  a 
century  and  a  half ;  and  his  sole  consolation  is  that 
the  negro  is  at  least  better  off  than  if  in  the  wilds 
of  Africa.  Admitting  an  evil  and  correcting  it  are, 
he  thinks,  two  different  propositions,  and  he  was  at 
this  time  utterly  hopeless  of  any  near  solution  of  the 
difficulty.  Then  he  proceeded,  as  usual,  to  roundly 
abuse  the  abolitionists,  whom  he  ever  detested. 

This  expression  of  his  views  has  been  variously 
commented  on.  The  abolitionists,  who  were  at  that 
time  girding  their  loins  for  another  battle,  saw  in  the 
statement  a  surrender  of  all  that  Clay  had  said 
against  slavery  throughout  his  life.  They  thought 
it  a  poor  division  when  one  who  professed  to  abhor 
slavery  gave  the  negro  bondman  sympathy,  but  gave 
his  master  the  bondman.  Birney  had  broken  with 
Clay,  politically,  many  years  before  this  because 
Clay  would  not  once  more  go  into  a  scheme  for 
gradual  emancipation  which  had  received  the  en 
dorsement  of  some  of  the  most  prominent  slave 
holders  of  Fayette  (Clay's  own)  County.  Birney 
charged  that  Clay  feared  it  would  hurt  his  political 
prospects  in  the  South  to  be  allied  with  such  a  move 
ment,  just  as  he  claimed  that  his  speech  in  1 847  was 
double-faced,  part  for  the  North  and  part  for  the 
South. 

This  sort  of  criticism  from  a  Northern  man  might 
easily  be  dismissed  as  being  from  a  prejudiced  or 

H7 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

ignorant  source.  Birney,  however,  was  a  Kentuckian 
born,  who  had  inherited  a  lot  of  slaves,  and  not 
only  set  them  free,  but  had  sent  them  North  and 
provided  for  them.  Birney  was  a  man  to  whom 
a  conviction  meant  a  sure  policy  of  action,  and  he 
was  disgusted  with  Clay  for  holding  identically  the 
same  views,  but  unwilling  to  carry  them  out.  He 
openly  charged  that  in  1830  Clay  alone  defeated 
the  movement  for  gradual  emancipation  which  had 
been  endorsed  by  so  many  prominent  men  in  both 
parties,  all  slave-holders. 

Clay,  however,  was  no  professional  philanthropist. 
He  was  a  Virginian  by  descent,  and  his  temperament 
was  not  such  as  to  seek  a  solution  of  this  problem 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  If  his  political  am 
bition  at  times  stood  in  the  way  of  practical  philan 
thropy,  he  was  no  more  than  human.  He  believed 
the  subject  was  so  vast  that  it  must  be  settled  gradu 
ally,  and  on  a  true  basis.  We  have  seen  that  the 
violent  and  sudden  breaking  of  the  bonds  of  four 
million  slaves  brought  other  problems  which  are  not 
yet  settled. 

But  though,  in  politics,  Clay  temporized  with  the 
Southern  view  of  slavery,  in  his  actual  contact  with 
the  negro  race  he  was  all  that  a  Christian  gentleman 
could  be.  One  of  the  sorrows  of  his  life  was  the 
discovery  that  the  husband  of  a  favorite  daughter 
was  little  better  than  a  slave-dealer  ;  that  he  owned 
barracoons  of  negroes  in  the  far  South,  and  dealt  in 
them  largely.  This  was  agonizing  to  his  soul,  as  he 
abhorred  the  traffic,  as  did  nearly  every  gentleman 
in  the  South,  even  those  who  bought  and  sold  slaves. 
Clay  bought  many  slaves,  but  never  sold  one. 
Among  them  he  was  a  patriarch,  and  as  much  ad 
mired  as  by  the  whites.  It  was  a  social  distinction 
to  belong  to  Marse  Clay. 

On  his  way  from  Ashland  to  Lexington,  not  long 
14$ 


CLAY   ON   SLAVERY 

after  he  had  purchased  the  estate,  he  overtook  a  lot 
of  negroes,  and  among  them  a  small  boy  who  was 
crying  lustily.  On  asking  what  was  the  trouble,  the 
pickaninny  said  that  they  were  all  slaves  of  a  recently 
dead  master,  and  were  going  to  be  sold,  and  he  was 
afraid  that  he  and  his  mother  would  be  separated. 
Clay's  feelings  were  touched,  and  he  immediately 
bought  both  mother  and  child,  who  lived  on  his 
estate  the  rest  of  their  days  or  until  emancipated. 
This  boy  grew  up  and  became  known  as  Old  Harve, 
and  was  the  most  faithful  of  servants.  The  oldest 
of  the  servants  was  Old  Aaron,  who  was  the  coach 
man  (afterwards  set  free),  and  he  quite  lorded  it  over 
all  the  rest  of  the  negroes  because  of  his  years  and 
long  contact  with  the  Senator.  Before  he  died  he 
expressed  a  wish  to  have  a  big  funeral,  which  the 
Senator  proceeded  to  gratify.  He  purchased  a  lot 
in  the  principal  cemetery  of  the  town  and  engaged 
his  own  pastor  to  conduct  the  services. 

The  pall-bearers  were  the  oldest  servants  on  the 
place,  and,  as  was  the  custom,  each  wore  a  long 
piece  of  crape  flowing  from  his  hat.  The  funeral 
pageant  was  a  great  success  and  much  edified  the 
negro  population.  On  the  way  home  from  the 
funeral,  Old  Harve  stopped  in  town  to  get  a  new 
pair  of  shoes,  and  unwittingly  left  his  crape  in  the 
store,  and  did  not  discover  it  until  reaching  home, 
when  he  apologized  to  his  mistress,  saying,  "  I  never 
poll-parroted  before,  nohow." 

He  was  always  willing  to  let  his  slaves  earn  their 
freedom,  and  his  valet,  who  had  served  him  long  and 
faithfully,  was  almost  driven  into  freedom  after 
refusing  it  for  years.  By  will,  all  the  slaves  on  his 
estate  were  freed  on  reaching  a  certain  age,  and 
were  assured  not  only  of  an  elementary  education, 
but  provision  was  made  for  their  future  so  that  they 
might  not  drift  into  idleness  or  want.  This  greatly 

149 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

reduced  the  value  of  his  estate  but  there  was  never 
a  murmur  of  complaint  from  any  of  the  heirs.  Many 
of  the  servants  remained  on  the  plantation  until 
death  or  the  war  disturbed  conditions  and  the  estate 
was  sold. 

The  writer  of  this,  just  after  the  Civil  War,  when 
a  youth,  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  old  Phoenix 
Hotel,  the  centre  of  the  social  and  political  life  of 
Lexington  in  the  old  days.  There  was  at  the  time 
an  aged  negro  barber  who  was  the  autocrat  of  the 
place  because  he  declared  that  he  had  been  there 
for  nearly  eighty  years.  His  chief  delight  was  to  tell 
stories  of  the  great  men  whom  he  had  served,  and 
in  particular  Henry  Clay.  The  old  man  had  a  very 
vivid  imagination,  and  some  of  his  tales  were,  perhaps, 
apocryphal,  but  others  were  undoubtedly  true.  One 
of  them  which  impressed  the  writer  so  that  he  can 
yet  remember  the  old  man's  exact  words  and  into 
nation,  ran  as  follows  : 

"  Yassir,  Marse  Clay  doan  'low  no  nigger  to  shave  'im  but 
me.  Sometime  he  come  in  an'  I  shavin'  'nother  gen'leman; 
but  soon's  any  one  see  Marse  Clay,  he  jump  up  and  say, 
'Tek  my  cheer,'  and  he  just  as  proud  as  peacock  to  wait 
with  the  lather  all  overn  'is  face  while  I  shaves  Marse  Clay. 
Yassir,  he  talk  about  that  for  months,  and  Marse  Clay,  he 
always  thank  'im  so  grand  like  it  mek  'im  proud. 

' '  Marse  Clay,  he  call  me  Henry,  but  that  ain'  my  name, 
but  he  call  me  Henry  'caze  that  he  own  name,  jest  for  devil 
ment.  He  come  in  he  always  mek  joke.  '  Henry,'  he  say, 
'  you  ain'  no  barber.  You  ought  to  be  butcher  an'  shave  de 
hawgs.'  I  say  to  'im,  '  Dat  jes'  w'at  I  goin'  to  do  now,  Marse 
Clay. '  An'  he  look  tumble  at  me  and  say,  '  You  damn  black 
nigger,  I  cut  yo'  ears  out  an'  sell  you  down  de  ribber  ef  you 
scratch  me.'  Den  he  laugh,  an'  I  laugh,  an'  I  don'  scratch 
'im  'ceptin'  only  de  one  time, 

"One  time  Marse  Clay  he  very  ole  man,  an*  he  come 
in  de  Phoenix,  an'  young  man  have  to  help  him  'caze 
he  no  longer  biggety  lak  he  uster  be,  and  he  cough  tumble. 
He  set  down  for  shave,  an*  I  feelin'  mighty  po'ly  dat  day. 
He  ax  me  if  I  doan'  think  he  gittin'  ole,  and  I  say,  '  No, 

150 


CLAY   ON   SLAVERY 

Marse  Clay,  you  jes'  lookin'  like  er  two-year-ole. '  He  say, 
'  Henry,  you  bad  liar.  I  go  an'  sell  you  down  de  ribber,  'caze 
you  bad  liar. '  I  ain'  sayin'  nothin' ,  '  caze  I  feelin'  mighty  bad, 
an'  I  shave  'im,  but  my  han'  trimble  an'  fust  thing  I  know  I 
scratch  'im.  Yassir,  I  scratch  'im.  I  ain'  never  done  that 
afore,  but  I  feelin'  bad,  and  cyan't  hoi'  de  razor  straight. 
Marse  Clay  he  look  at  me  mighty  cu'ous  outen  them  cata 
mount  eyes  o*  his'n,  but  he  ain'  say  nothin'.  I  feel  so  bad 
'at  I  scratch  'im  agane,  and  den  seems  ter  me  he  gwine  rise 
up  an'  kill  me ;  but  he  ain'  sayin'  nothin'  'twell  scratch  'im 
once  mo',  and  den  he  rise  up  in  de  cheer,  and  say  in  that 
soft  voice  o*  his'n,  'Henry,  what  ail  you  all  dis  ebenin' ? 
You  ain'  nebber  cut  me  'fore.'  Den  I  tells  'im.  My  boy 
Joel,  'at  was  body-serv'nt  to  one  o'  young  Marse  Henry 
Clay's  ossifers  enduin'  o'  the  Mexan  War,  he  in  trubble. 
One  o'  Marse  Preston's  bad  niggers  an'  Joel  gits  in  a  mixup, 
an'  he  goin'  kill  my  Joel ;  but  Joel,  he  cut  'im  with  a  knife, 
an'  Marse  Preston  put  Joel  in  de  jail  and  say  he  goin'  sell 
'im  down  to  New  Yorleens  an'  I  ain'  goin'  see  him  no  mo'. 
My  boy  Joel,  he  good  boy,  but  no  nigger  musn'  trifle  wid  'im, 
nor  sass  'im,  nor  tell  'im  he  ole  father  nuthin'  but  babboon. 
I  tell'n  Marse  Clay  dis,  and  he  gettin'  madder  all  de  time, 
'caze  Joel  he  hep  cyarry  young  Marse  Clay  offen  de  fiel'  at 
Beyuna  Visty  when  he  get  kill  in  de  war,  and  he  and  yuther 
nigger  fetch  'im  offen  de  fiel'  when  de  Mexans  tryin'  kill 
eberbody,  an'  my  Joel  he  get  hit,  too,  only  not  bad.  Since 
then  Marse  Clay  he  always  like  Joel,  and  always  asken  me 
abouten  'im.  Den  w'en  I  tell  about  Joel,  Marse  Clay  he  rise 
right  up  in  de  cheer  and  say,  'Gimme  my  cane  !'  he  say, 
'Gimme  my  cane  !'  an'  he  voice  sound  like  de  roarin*  ob  de 
lion.  I  say,  '  Hole  on,  Marse  Clay,  I  ain'  more'n  half  shave 
you  yit,'  an'  he  yell  out  once  mo',  '  Gimme  my  cane  !'  an'  de 
young  man  w'at's  wid  'im,  brung  'im  de  cane,  and  he  go  out 
de  do',  an'  I  tink,  '  Lawdamassey,  what  on  de  yearth  a-comin' 
now."  Bimeby  back  come  Marse  Clay  and  Marse  Preston, 
and  Marse  Clay  he  say,  '  You  tell  'im,'  he  say,  '  you  tell  'im 
you  ain'  goin'  sell  Joel.  Dat  boy  carried  my  boy  off  de  bat- 
tle-fiel'  when  he  daid,'  and  den  Marse  Clay,  de  tears  come 
in  he  eyes,  and  Marse  Preston  say  he  ain'  goin'  sell  my  Joel, 
only  he  musn't  cut  no  mo'  niggers.  Den  Marse  Clay  he  sit 
down  an'  I  finish  shavin'  'im,  an'  I  ain'  cut  'im  no  mo', 
and  w'en  Marse  Clay  go  he  gimme  a  dollar,  an'  I  ain'  nebber 
shave  'im  no  mo'  'caze  he  soon  goin'  Washington  an' 
die." 


\ 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

About  the  only  practical  effort  that  Clay  made  in 
the  way  of  emancipation  was  in  connection  with  the 
American  Colonization  Society,  of  which  he  was  one 
of  the  founders  and  for  some  years  president.  This 
was  a  chimerical  scheme  both  as  regards  the  number 
of  freedmen  that  were  deported  and  as  to  their  suc 
cess  in  Liberia.  It  served  as  a  salve  for  the  con 
sciences  of  many  Southern  slave-holders,  who  con 
tributed  to  its  funds  and  thus  thought  they  were 
doing  all  that  human  ingenuity  could  devise  to  get 
rid  of  an  odious,  though  profitable  institution.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  Clay  could  have  wielded  an  im 
mense  influence  in  favor  of  gradual  emancipation  in 
Kentucky,  but  whether  it  could  have  been  brought 
about,  even  under  his  leadership,  is  an  open  question. 
There  are  those  who  think  he  should  have  tried,  and 
the  fact  that  he  did  not  do  so  cost  him  the  Presidency, 
since,  when  Birney  ran  as  the  Liberty  party  candidate 
in  1844  against  his  old  friend  Clay,  he  managed  to 
draw  off  from  the  Whigs  enough  votes  in  New  York 
to  elect  Polk,  who  was  committed  to  the  Mexican 
War.  This  was  a  strange  notion  for  a  party  whose 
sole  desire  at  the  immediate  moment  was  to  prevent 
the  annexation  of  Texas.  But  the  truth  was  that 
Birney  and  the  abolitionists  had  become  discouraged 
by  Clay's  attitude  on  the  subject.  He  had  declared 
himself  against  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  later 
had  said  he  favored  it  under  certain  circumstances. 
This  matter  will  be  discussed  later,  and  is  mentioned 
here  because  it  naturally  falls  under  the  subject  of 
his  view  on  slavery  and  antislavery's  view  of  him. 
It  is  fair  to  say  that  Birney  always  denied  that  he 
was  the  cause  of  Clay's  defeat,  and  succeeded  in 
making  Horace  Greeley  retract  the  charge,  but  the 
logic  of  figures  and  known  facts  is  with  the  state 
ment  as  given. 

Perhaps,  if  slavery  in  Kentucky  had  manifested 
152 


CLAY   ON   SLAVERY 

the  horrors  which  were  more  or  less  present  in  the 
cotton  belt,  Clay's  actions  would  have  been  dif 
ferent.  In  Kentucky  it  was  a  patriarchal  institu 
tion.  It  is  true  that  there  were  cases  of  brutality, 
and  no  defence  is  offered  for  the  institution,  even  in 
its  most  benevolent  aspects ;  but  it  is  certain  that,  as 
a  rule,  the  slave  in  Kentucky  had  an  easy  time  of 
it.  He  had  plenty  to  eat  and  wear  and  was  seldom 
disturbed  in  his  family  relations  or  those  to  his  mas 
ter.  He  did  not  work  very  hard,  save  in  the 
summer  season,  and  the  lash  was  almost  entirely 
unknown,  except  in  the  case  of  the  fractious.  No 
where  in  the  country  was  slavery  so  mild,  and,  living 
in  that  atmosphere,  it  is  natural  that  Henry  Clay, 
who  was  not  much  given  to  introspection  and  not 
much  of  an  ethical  philosopher,  should  take  a 
different  view  of  the  subject  from  those  abolitionists 
who  lived  at  the  North  and  knew  little  about  the 
institution,  or  those  few  at  the  far  South  where  they 
saw  the  worst. 

Clay  was  hedged  about  by  inheritance,  traditions, 
and  environment  It  could  hardly  be  expected  that 
his  view  would  be  the  same  as  that  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  though  neither  of  them  was  wholly  in  the 
right  nor  wholly  in  the  wrong. 

Clay  continually  worked  to  keep  slavery  out  of 
politics.  He  deplored  the  tactics  of  the  abolitionists, 
and  it  is  not  just  to  ascribe  his  opinion  of  them  and 
their  propaganda  solely  to  a  desire  to  curry  political 
favor  with  the  slave  States.  It  would  be  hard  to 
find  a  man  who  did  more  unpopular  things  or  took 
more  unpopular  stands,  to  his  own  hurt,  than  Clay. 
He  was  no  coward,  and  though  it  is  common  to  call 
him  a  trimmer,  it  cannot  fairly  be  said  that  he  wa 
vered  so  much  for  personal  success  as  because  he 
believed  success  was  best  for  the  whole  country. 
It  ought  to  be  remembered  that,  while  he  hated s; 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

slavery,  he  never  believed  in  universal  emancipation, 
except  accompanied  by  emigration.  He  did  not 
believe  the  two  races  could  live  in  political  peace 
together.  He  drew  a  picture  of  what  would  happen, 
asserting  that  if  the  negroes  were  free  and  permitted 
to  vote,  there  would  be  strife  between  the  races, 
murder,  rapine,  and  civil  war.  In  the  last  part  of 
the  picture  Clay  has  not  been  wholly  justified  as 
yet,  though  we  have  passed  through  many  fiery 
trials,  and,  for  the  most  part,  exactly  along  the  lines 
which  Clay  predicted.  The  only  thing  that  can  be 
fairly  said  against  his  position,  according  to  his  own 
stand-point,  is  that  his  efforts  in  the  American  Colo 
nization  Society  were  so  feeble  that  it  was  like 
ladling  out  the  Atlantic  with  a  tin  cup.  One  with 
sucfT  sincere  convictions  might  have  found  a  more 
effective  way  than  this. 

But  although  Clay  wished  to  keep  slavery  out  of 
politics,  it  proved  impossible,  and  in  the  end  it  was 
the  antislavery  people  who  rejected  him  for  a  worse 
man,  according  to  their  own  standards.  Nothing  is 
so  persistent  and  so  masterful  in  politics  as  a  moral 
idea.  No  party  is  safe  unless  it  professes  and  ad 
heres  to  a  moral  idea,  and  it  was  the  weakness  of 
the  Whig  party  that  it  had  none. 

Although  Clay  emancipated  his  slaves  at  his  death, 
he  refused  to  do  so  while  alive,  and  for  this  he  was 
often  reproved.  To  one  Mendenhall,  a  Quaker,  who 
urged  this  course  upon  him,  he  replied  that  he  had 
some  fifty  slaves,  worth  about  fifteen  thousand  dollars  ; 
that  some  of  them  were  old  and  decrepit  and  utterly 
unable  to  make  a  living  ;  some  were  infants,  and  their 
mothers  were  not  likely  to  be  of  the  provident  and 
careful  sort.  The  dictates  of  humanity  prevented 
him  from  turning  these  off. 

"  Then  there  is  another  class  who  would  not  accept  their 
freedom,  if  I  would  give  it  them.  I  have  for  many  years 

154 


CLAY   ON   SLAVERY 

owned  a  slave  that  I  wished  would  leave  me,  but  he  will  not. 
What  my  treatment  of  my  slaves  is  you  may  learn  from 
Charles,  who  accompanies  me  on  this  journey,  and  who  has 
travelled  with  me  over  the  greater  part  of  the  United  States 
and  in  both  the  Canadas,  and  has  had  a  thousand  opportunities, 
if  he  had  chosen  to  embrace  them,  to  leave  me.  Excuse 
me  for  saying  that  my  slaves  are  as  well  fed  and  clad,  look 
as  sleek  and  hearty,  and  are  quite  as  civil  and  respectful  in 
their  demeanor  and  as  little  disposed  to  wound  the  feelings 
of  any  one  as  you  are.  I  shall  take  your  petition  [to  eman 
cipate  his  slaves]  into  deliberate  consideration  ;  but  before  I 
come  to  a  final  decision,  I  should  like  to  know  what  you  and 
your  associates  are  willing  to  do  for  the  slaves  in  my  posses 
sion,  if  I  should  think  proper  to  liberate  them.  Are  you  will 
ing  to  raise  and  secure  the  payment  of  fifteen  thousand  dol 
lars  for  their  benefit,  if  I  should  be  induced  to  free  them  ? 
The  security  of  the  payment  of  that  sum  would  materially 
lessen  the  obstacle  in  the  way  of  their  emancipation." 


This  sort  of  argument  is  laughed  at  by  those  who 
never  came  into  contact  with  slavery.  It  is  not  pre 
tended  that  it  was  conclusive  on  the  broad  question 
of  slavery,  but  for  individual  practical  cases  it  was  a 
strong  one,  and  as  against  immediate  abolitionists 
the  argumentum  ad  hominem  was  pretty  complete. 
Having  used  very  much  the  same  argument  on 
another  occasion,  the  reply  of  the  abolitionist  was 
that  money  considerations  must  not  stand  in  the 
way  of  good  morals.  It  so  happened  that  the  man 
in  question  was  a  rather  prosperous  one  from  New 
York.  Mr.  Clay  replied  that  he  had  never  meant 
to  put  it  on  those  grounds,  but  that  if  his  questioner 
believed  as  sincerely  in  the  teachings  of  the  Bible 
as  he  professed,  he  ought  to  follow  the  advice  of 
Jesus  and  go  and  sell  all  his  goods  and  give  them  to 
the  poor.  This  closed  the  incident. 

In  the  last  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  first  of  the 
nineteenth  centuries  the  newspapers  of  Kentucky 
teemed  with  advertisements  of  negroes,  cosmetics, 
books,  and  jackasses.  A  perusal  of  the  files  of  those 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

years  would  lead  one  to  suppose  that,  outside  of 
politics,  those  commodities  were  about  all  that  con 
cerned  the  neighborhood.  The  advertisements  are 
not  only  of  slaves  to  sell,  but  give  specifications 
of  those  desired,  and  there  is  in  most  of  them  an 
evidence  of  good  treatment ;  also,  in  some,  of  can 
dor.  One  advertisement  of  a  very  likely  negro 
boy,  who  had  about  all  the  merits  on  the  catalogue, 
concludes,  "  His  only  drawback  is  an  insatiable 
desire  for  strong  liquor." 

In  a  country  where  whiskey  was  native  the  slaves 
were  frequent  in  their  libations,  if  they  got  the 
chance.  A  temperance  lecture  was  held  in  Lexington, 
in  which  the  clergy  urged  that  no  slave  be  allowed 
over  three  drinks  of  rum  in  any  one  day,  except 
on  holidays  and  during  harvest.  Verily  the  situation 
of  the  Kentucky  plantation  slave  was  far  from  being 
unhappy,  as  Mrs.  Stowe  set  forth  in  her  book,  which 
she  was  almost  afraid  to  publish  because  she  thought 
her  Northern  friends  would  consider  her  an  apolo 
gist  for  slavery ! 


156 


XIII 

PERSONAL    CHARACTERISTICS 

IT  is  the  universal  testimony  of  his  contemporaries 
that  Clay  was  the  most  emotional  man  they  ever 
met.  This  is  the  key  to  his  character.  It  explains 
his  successes  and  his  failures.  It  was  this  feminine 
quality  which  distinguished  him  from  the  able  men 
with  whom  he  served.  It  amounted,  at  times,  almost 
to  hypnotic  power,  and  very  often  it  extended  to 
"absent  treatment."  No  man  in  his  life  was  ever 
loved  as  Henry  Clay.  Men  worked  for  him  with 
enthusiasm  and  wept  over  his  defeat.  Women  hung 
on  his  words  and  kissed  him.  There  has  been  no 
such  psychological  phenomenon  in  all  our  history. 

In  person  he  was  attractive.  Six  feet  one  inch 
tall,  spare  in  youth,  and  well  proportioned  in  later 
life.  He  had,  in  addition  to  a  pleasing  appearance, 
the  quality  of  self-reliance  in  the  extreme.  No  man 
ever  saw  him  embarrassed  in  society,  at  the  bar,  in 
Congress,  or  in  diplomacy.  This  extended  to  a  fault, 
since  no  man  has  within  himself  all  knowledge  or  all 
wisdom.  His  hair,  in  youth,  was  white,  eyes  blue, 
forehead  high,  nose  very  large  and  blunt.  The  most 
conspicuous  feature  was  his  mouth,  which  was  very 
large  but  not  displeasing.  His  lips  were  so  formed 
that,  in  his  own  words,  he  "  never  could  learn  to  spit," 
and  so  was  no  tobacco-chewer.  He  was  a  dis 
tinguished-looking  man,  but  in  repose  his  face  was 
far  from  handsome. 

His  voice  was  a  wonderful  organ.  It  ranged  from 
deep  bass  to  high  falsetto,  and  he  early  learned  to  have 
it  under  complete  control,  and  modulated  it  to  the 

157 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

need  of  each  occasion.  Its  sympathetic  quality  stood 
him  in  good  stead.  Had  he  studied  vocal  rn.«sic,  he 
would  have  been  an  unusually  fine  singep^ 

He  was  no  profound  scholar,  had  ncrlknowledge  of 
metaphysics,  or  the  refinements  of  logic,  and  cared 
little  for  books.  He  affected  to  despise  such  things, 
and  this  was  a  great  weakness.  He  seldom  cared  to 
learn,  except  from  experience,  which  he  did  not  al 
ways  take  to  heart  His  self-dependence  was  not 
always  justified,  but  often  enough  to  exaggerate  his 
own  idea  of  his  infallibility.  He  asked  little  advice, 
and  always  made  his  political  programmes  unaided. 
Elsewhere  it  has  been  noted  that  he  was  not  learned 
in  the  law;  but  where  success  in  difficult  cases  came, 
unexpectedly  to  others,  it  was  due  to  his  rare 
resourcefulness,  and  his  keen  perceptions,  and  an 
adroit  way  of  turning  things  to  his  own  advantage. 

His  first  instincts  were  usually  correct,  and  he  was 
bold  in  stating  his  position.  Having  thus  declared 
himself,  he  seemed  to  think  that  he  had  paid  sufficient 
tribute  to  absolute  truth,  as  he  understood  it,  and  was 
justified  in  becoming  latitudinarian.  Thus,  when 
charged  with  inconsistency  on  any  great  political 
subject,  he  would  point  to  some  original  statement 
he  had  made,  often  quite  at  variance  with  the 
popular  understanding  of  his  existing  position,  and 
triumphantly  discomfit  his  accusers.  He  could  do 
the  same  for  parties  representing  diametrically  op 
posed  positions.  Clay  alone  could  not  see  that  he 
was  inconsistent.  On  only  rare  occasions  would  he 
admit  he  had  changed  his  position, — as  in  the  case 
of  the  bank.  In  all  this  Clay  was  honest  with  him 
self.  It  was  a  psychological  infirmity,  due  in  part 
to  his  defective  education  and  in  part  to  his  temper 
ament.  Not  once  in  his  whole  career  was  he  guilty 
of  knowingly  abandoning  a  policy  or  a  friend  from 
ignoble  motives.  It  was  impossible.  But  his  impul- 

158 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

sive  nature  led  him  to  say  bitter  things  and  to 
change  his  position  without  being  aware  of  it.  Had 
he  boldly  avowed  himself  an  opportunist,  he  would 
have  been  better  understood  and  more  respected. 
As  it  was,  he  wounded  his  friends  more  than  his 
enemies,  though  without  the  slightest  intention. 

Except  in  the  height  of  angry  colloquy,  he  was 
courteous  and  generous.  He  was  a  fine  sample  of  the 
courtly  Virginian,  and  noblesse  oblige  was  with  him 
an  article  of  faith  and  practice.  At  the  bar  he  was 
courteous;  in  debate  he  never  took  unfair  advantage, 
and  only  when  roused  by  passion,  with  a  too  gen 
erous  admixture  of  whiskey,  did  his  better  nature 
lose  control.  Sometimes  he  was  neatly  met  on  his 
own  ground.  Once,  in  the  Senate,  after  he  had 
made  a  particularly  severe  attack  on  Jackson,  telling 
Van  Buren,  who  was  then  Vice-President,  to  go  to 
the  President  and  represent  the  ruined  state  of  the 
country,  and  more  to  this  effect,  the  latter  calmly 
descended  from  the  chair  and,  walking  solemnly  to 
Clay,  asked  him  for  a  pinch  of  snuff.  It  was  cour 
teously  given,  but  it  ruined  the  whole  effect  of  his 
philippic. 

In  his  home  he  was  a  delightful  host,  and  his 
entertaining  would  have  ruined  a  less  resourceful 
man.  Only  one  instance  is  recorded  of  an  unfortu 
nate  affair  with  a  guest.  Captain  Marryat,  the 
British  novelist,  was  visiting  him,  when  Clay  com 
mented  on  the  foreign  custom  of  tipping  servants. 
Marryat  denied  that  the  custom  existed  ;  whereupon 
Clay  told  of  his  experience  in  London  while  nego 
tiating  the  commercial  treaty.  It  seems  that  on  the 
occasion  of  a  visit  to  an  official's  house,  he  had  failed 
to  tip  the  servants,  and  a  delegate  from  the  latter 
called  on  him  to  collect  the  money.  Clay  was  out 
raged,  and  at  first  refused.  The  servant  explained 
that  it  was  customary,  and  showed  the  list  of  tips 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

given  by  his  colleagues,  which,  as  a  rule,  were  large. 
Clay  gave  the  man  the  smallest  sum  on  the  list  and 
promptly  lodged  a  complaint,  which,  of  course, 
amounted  to  nothing. 

After  relating  this  incident,  Clay  raised  his  glass 
and  proposed  the  captain's  health ;  but  the  latter  was 
enraged,  being  trapped,  and  replied,  brusquely, — 

"  No,  I  have  had  enough." 

Clay  looked  at  him  a  moment ;  then,  turning  to 
the  youngest  person  at  the  board,  a  mere  lad,  said, 

"I  drink  to  you.    You  haven't  drunk  too  much." 

Lafayette,  Harriet  Martineau,  and  many  other 
distinguished  foreigners  were  his  guests,  and  his 
hospitality  was  lavish. 

In  spite  of  his  angry  passages  with  many  persons, 
he  never  cherished  resentments.  With  most  of  his 
foes  he  made  peace  before  he  died.  Crittenden 
alone  appears  to  have  been  kept  out  of  the  inner 
circle  almost  to  the  last ;  yet  Clay  was  so  far  from 
resentment  that  he  urged  on  Fillmore  his  appoint 
ment  to  a  cabinet  position,  and  it  was  made. 

In  his  last  years  there  was  a  vacancy  in  the  Lex 
ington  post-office,  a  good  position  in  those  days. 
The  late  incumbent  was  a  Whig,  but  his  assistant 
was  a  Democrat  and  an  aspirant  for  the  vacant  po 
sition.  He  was  popular  and  in  every  way  worthy, 
but  his  chances  seemed  nil.  Clay  promptly  had  him 
appointed  by  a  Whig  administration. 

When  Barry,  of  Lexington,  a  fierce  political  oppo 
nent,  was  Postmaster-General,  there  was  a  post-office 
scandal  of  great  magnitude,  and  the  Whigs  were 
jubilant.  It  seemed  a  chance  for  Clay  to  get  back 
at  his  old  opponent,  who  had  so  bitterly  maligned 
him  in  the  "corrupt  bargain"  affair.  On  the  con 
trary,  Clay  arose  in  the  Senate  and  said  that,  what 
ever  might  be  the  result  of  the  investigation,  he  was 
certain  that  no  stain  of  dishonor  could  adhere  to 

160 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

his  old  friend  and  political  foe  the  Postmaster- 
General. 

It  was  with  Benton  that  he  broke  most  lances. 
For  thirty  years  the  sturdy  Missourian  sat  in  the 
Senate.  He  was  as  different  from  Clay  as  possible. 
Could  either  have  combined  the  good  qualities  of 
both,  there  would  have  been  such  a  statesman  as  the 
country  has  never  seen.  Benton  was  as  immovable 
as  Clay  was  volatile.  Both  had  been  reared  in  the 
same  school  of  experience  and  each  had  his  weak 
points.  Politically  they  fought  it  out  on  the  floor  of 
the  Senate  with  hammer  blows,  but  almost  always 
maintained  friendly  personal  relations,  due  in  part 
to  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Clay  was  cousin  to  Benton,  and 
in  part  to  the  mutual  admiration  of  the  two  men  for 
each  other's  good  qualities.  Ambition  seized  Benton 
but  once,  and  that  was  in  the  military  line,  and 
proved  a  fiasco.  Clay  had  pretty  nearly  every  sort 
of  public  ambition  but  this. 

The  weakness  of  Clay's  character  lay  in  his  easy 
seduction  by  the  siren  of  ambition.  Time  and  again 
he  renounced  public  life  and  determined  to  enjoy 
himself  at  Ashland  ;  but  never  for  long.  Kentucky 
was  ever  anxious  to  honor  him,  and  Whigs  the  country 
over  were  constantly  invoking  his  aid.  His  perfervid 
imagination  always  came  to  him  at  such  times  as  a 
thief  in  the  night.  It  demonstrated  how  he  could 
become  President  with  such  apparently  mathematical 
accuracy  that  he  could  not  resist.  His  wife  wanted 
him  to  stay  home,  but  never  interfered  in  his  ambi 
tious  plans,  though  she  does  not  seem  to  have  shared 
his  optimism. 

His  love  of  children  was  a  master-passion.  Nine 
of  his  children  grew  up,  at  least  to  middle  youth, 
but  he  survived  most  of  them.  The  death  of  four 
daughters  within  a  comparatively  short  time  wrung 
his  sensitive  nature  almost  to  the  breaking-point, 
«  161 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

When  Colonel  Clay  fell  at  Buena  Vista,  it  seemed  as 
if  the  god  of  day  had  gone  down  ;  thereafter  he  was 
a  broken  old  man.  His  family  relations  were  beautiful 
all  his  life  long.  For  over  fifty  years  he  was  a  loving 
husband  and  father,  and  those  of  his  descendants 
who  remember  him  cherish  his  memory  with  almost 
idolatrous  affection.  It  is  a  striking  commentary  on 
his  own  character  and  the  temper  of  the  times  that 
thrice  he  placed  the  happiness  and  support  of  his 
family  in  jeopardy,  and  on  other  occasions  seemed 
to  invite  mortal  combat. 

The  affection  of  friends  is  instanced  by  the  fact 
that  in  the  fall  of  1844  a  bridal  couple  visited  Ash 
land  on  their  wedding- tour  just  as  Clay's  defeat  was 
learned.  On  the  journey  down  the  Mississippi  the 
bridegroom  became  ill  and  grew  worse  and  worse,  so 
that  a  physician  was  called  in.  Finding  no  functional 
trouble,  he  asked  the  bride  if  her  husband  had  sus 
tained  any  recent  severe  mental  shock.  She  told  of 
his  grief  over  Clay's  defeat,  whereupon  the  physician 
threw  his  arms  around  his  patient,  wept  with  him, 
and  departed.  There  was  no  cure  for  such  a  wound 
as  this. 

One  must  not  gather  from  any  relation  of  Clay's 
weaknesses  that  he  was  not  a  strong  man.  He  was 
a  very  great  man.  His  failings  were  generally  such 
as  led  men  to  be  lenient.  His  virtues  roused  men 
almost  to  the  point  of  adoration,  but  a  certain  con 
genital  moral  and  intellectual  strabismus  at  times 
alienated  from  him  those  on  whom  his  success 
depended. 

It  is  necessary  to  consider  some  of  his  habits  in 
detail,  because  of  the  extraordinary  charges  that 
were  made  concerning  him  during  his  lifetime,  and 
which  are  still  believed  by  many  persons.  Accord 
ing  to  the  custom  of  his  time,  he  drank  rather  freely, 
but  seldom  to  excess.  No  one  ever  saw  him  visibly 

162 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

under  the  influence  of  liquor,  or,  at  least,  to  a  degree 
that  made  a  painful  impression.  In  his  youth  he 
was  esteemed  a  moderate  man  in  all  things,  and  in 
later  years  he  raised  wine  on  his  own  estate,  of 
which  he  was  very  fond.  It  was  only  occasionally 
that  he  indulged  in  whiskey,  if  we  can  believe  con 
temporaneous  accounts.  In  the  committee-rooms 
of  the  Senate  liquor  was  to  be  found,  and  it  was  the 
almost  universal  custom  for  members  to  fortify  them 
selves  repeatedly.  On  some  occasions  Clay  is  said 
by  eye-witnesses  to  have  taken  enough  to  add  to  the 
fury  of  his  indignation,  but  never  to  show  any  signs 
of  intoxication. 

In  youth  he  played  for  high  stakes,  but  was  not  a 
gambler  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word.  He  only 
played  with  friends,  and  abhorred  the  public  gaming 
table,  which  he  never  attended.  In  his  day  the 
favorite  game  of  chance  was  "  Boston,"  and  Clay  was 
so  fond  of  this  that  he  would  spend  most  of  the 
night  at  play.  In  Washington,  during  his  earlier 
career,  he  is  said  to  have  lost  eight  thousand  dollars 
in  a  single  night,  and  this  so  crippled  him  that, 
though  later  he  won  most  of  it  back,  he  gave  up 
high  stakes  for  a  long  time.  Another  favorite  game 
was  brag, — the  earliest  form  of  poker, — in  which 
bluffing  was  a  far  greater  element  than  now,  since 
there  was  no  draw.  This  Clay  loved  to  play  in  the 
summer  time,  at  the  various  Springs  where  he  jour 
neyed,  and  there  are  plenty  living  who  remember 
seeing  him  and  other  prominent  men  thus  engaged, 
with  mint-juleps  on  the  side-board  for  refreshment. 

On  one  occasion  a  friend  said  to  Mrs.  Clay, 
"Isn't  it  a  pity  your  husband  gambles  so  much ?" 

To  which  the  lady  replied,  "Oh,  I  don't  know. 
Mr.  Clay  usually  wins."  This  story  is  denied. 

All  testimony  is  to  the  effect  that,  as  a  rule,  he  did 
win.  In  his  seventieth  year  he  joined  the  Episcopal 

163 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Church,  after  which  his  demeanor  was  more  quiet,  as, 
in  any  event,  his  advancing  years  would  have  com 
pelled.  Two  grandchildren  were  christened  at  the 
time.  Clay  always  was  a  religious  man  in  sentiment, 
had  the  highest  reverence  for  Christianity,  and  was 
a  rather  constant  attendant  at  church.  Although, 
after  the  manner  of  the  times,  he  would  swear 
roundly  on  occasion,  there  was  less  of  profanity  in 
his  remarks  than  of  adherence  to  a  custom  which 
prevailed  among  gentlemen  of  the  highest  standing, 
even  in  the  church.  He  was  a  close  friend  of  the 
clergy,  in  spite  of  faults,  which  were  more  con 
doned  in  his  day  than  in  ours.  One  of  the  remark 
able  scenes  in  1844  was  when  the  Rev.  William 
Gunn  and  his  twelve  stalwart  sons  marched  to  the 
polls  at  Lexington  and  voted  in  a  body  for  their 
friend  and  neighbor.  And  one  of  the  most  pathetic 
was  when  those  same  thirteen  men  burst  into  tears 
when  they  found  their  leader  had  been  defeated. 

There  is  another  subject  that  must  be  spoken  of 
because  it  has  already  been  given  so  much  pub 
licity, — his  personal  morals.  It  has  been  freely 
stated  that  he  was  the  father  of  many  illegitimate 
children  and  that  he  kept  a  negro  mistress.  Horace 
Greeley,  in  his  Tribune  Almanac  for  1843,  published 
a  life  of  Clay  by  Henry  J.  Raymond,  in  which  the 
subject  was  freely  discussed  and  the  charges  laid  to 
political  malice.  This  writer  has  been  at  great  pains 
to  discover  any  evidence  of  the  charges  made,  and 
has  found  none  which  is  reliable,  outside  of  a 
single  ambiguous  statement  of  John  Quincy  Adams. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  testimony  of  men  yet  living 
and  those  dead  is  to  the  contrary.  It  is  true  the 
latter  is  negative  evidence,  but  it  is  of  more  value 
than  the  irresponsible  charges. 

This  much  is  true,  that  Clay  was  the  most  uxori 
ous  of  men,  and  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  the 

164 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

affection  that  was  so  wonderful  between  himself 
and  wife  could  have  continued  had  he  been  guilty 
of  derelictions. 

It  is  the  common  notion  that  he  was  careless 
about  money  matters  and  that  he  was  most  of  the 
time  in  debt.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  most  scrupu 
lous.  In  the  memorandum  taken  down  on  his  death 
bed  he  had  every  financial  arrangement  figured  out, 
even  to  the  fact  that  on  a  certain  day  his  body- 
servant  would  be  entitled  to  two  dollars.  An  old 
man  tells  how,  upon  one  occasion,  Clay  was  in 
Lexington,  and,  wanting  a  newspaper,  found  him 
self  without  change  and  borrowed  ten  cents  from 
him.  Next  day  Clay  drove  all  the  way  in  the  rain 
to  town  to  return  the  money.  That  he  occasionally 
borrowed  large  sums  of  money  is  true,  but  so  did 
every  prominent  man  of  his  time  and  nearly  every 
one  now,  and  he  paid  all  of  his  notes,  with  the 
single  exception  hereafter  referred  to. 

In  spite  of  his  geniality  and  the  wonderful  power 
he  had  over  men,  Clay  was  always  dignified  in 
public, — at  times  almost  to  austerity.  He  paced  the 
streets  of  Lexington  alone,  as  a  rule.  No  man 
came  up  to  him  and  slapped  him  on  the  back  and 
said,  "Hello,  Harry!"  He  had  friends  by  legions, 
but  they  took  no  liberties  with  him.  He  had  a 
peculiar  walk,  like  an  Indian,  in  which  his  feet  were 
always  kept  pointed  straight  ahead  instead  of  in 
clined  to  the  outside,  as  in  the  case  of  most  per 
sons.  This  gave  his  stride  a  dignity  and  peculiarity 
that  was  notable,  and  wherever  he  walked  people 
turned  instinctively  to  look  at  him.  He  had  a  well- 
shaped  foot  and  hand  and  he  always  wore  shoes, 
which  was  remarkable,  seeing  that  boots  were  almost 
universally  worn  at  that  time.  He  said  they  hurt 
his  ankles.  He  was  exceedingly  neat  in  person  and 
fastidious  as  to  dress.  He  liked  popularity  and  had 

165 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

not  a  little  vanity,  as  was  natural.  Success  joined 
to  his  natural  temperament  made  him  imperious, 
and  he  brooked  no  opposition.  This  was  a  fault 
which  very  often  injured  him  in  politics.  He  wanted 
to  lead  his  party  without  any  advice,  and  often  he 
committed  it  without  consultation  in  very  important 
matters.  This  was  not  the  sort  of  temperament  nor 
the  kind  of  leadership  that  brought  success  in  a 
country  where  every  man  is  an  emperor.  Clay  was 
a  democrat  in  convictions,  but  really  an  aristocrat  in 
practice. 

One  certain  way  to  get  him  aroused  was  to  accuse 
him  of  cowardice.  In  the  plenitude  of  his  career, 
Tom  Marshall  was  his  most  distinguished  competitor 
for  forensic  honors.  Marshall  had  a  brilliancy  which 
has  become  traditional,  though  few  evidences  of  it 
remain,  and  it  seems  to  have  drawn  much  of  its 
inspiration  from  the  bottle.  One  summer  Clay  came 
home  resolved  to  get  rest  and  make  no  speeches, 
whereupon  Marshall,  on  the  stump,  made  some  con 
temptuous  remarks,  indicating  that  Clay  did  not 
speak  because  he  was  afraid  to  open  his  mouth  on 
current  questions.  This  came  to  Clay's  ears,  and 
he  at  once  issued  a  notice  that  on  such  and  such  a 
day  he  would  address  the  people  of  the  district,  and 
that  Marshall  would  have  a  chance  to  reply.  Clay 
was  in  fine  fettle  on  that  occasion  and  wrought  up 
to  indignation  by  Marshall's  insinuations.  His  wrath 
was  terrible,  and  the  anathemas  hurled  against  Mar 
shall  and  his  party  were  terrible.  When  Clay  had 
finished  and  some  of  Marshall's  friends  desired  him 
to  reply,  the  latter  said, — 

"  By  God  !  the  old  man  has  on  his  war-paint  to 
day  and  I  dare  not  meet  him." 

Remembering  how  he  came  to  Lexington  almost 
friendless,  he  had  a  great  way  of  aiding  young  men, 
both  with  advice,  recommendations,  and  money. 

166 


PERSONAL    CHARACTERISTICS 

In  this  way  he  had  a  devoted  band  of  youngsters 
who  could  be  depended  on  at  any  moment  to  come 
to  his  assistance  in  politics.  At  the  famous  dinners 
at  the  Phoenix  Hotel,  in  Lexington,  where  he  was 
apt  to  sound  the  key-note  of  his  campaigns,  he  was 
always  sure  to  have  a  good  sprinkling  of  these 
present,  as  he  felt  it  essential  for  any  political  party 
to  encourage  those  who  were  likely  to  grow  up  into 
leadership. 

Being  always  accessible,  with  his  genial  side 
presented,  keeping  strictly  in  the  background  the 
many  worries  incidental  to  his  position,  it  was  known 
to  but  few  what  a  really  indefatigable  student  he 
was  on  occasion,  especially  where  the  tariff  was  con 
cerned.  The  latter  half  of  many  a  night  he  passed 
poring  over  and  assimilating  facts  and  figures  with 
which,  on  the  following  day,  he  would  bring  confusion 
into  the  ranks  of  his  opponents.  And  oftentimes  he 
would  open  the  most  tremendous  debate  with  his 
body  no  better  nourished  than  by  a  single  cup  of 
coffee. 

The  politeness  of  Mr.  Clay  was  so  genuine  as  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  its  true  definition,  benev 
olence  in  small  things.  A  little  girl  who  was  on  a 
journey  with  her  father,  and  chancing  to  dine  with 
him  at  Ashland,  was  called  by  Mr.  Clay  to  sit  beside 
him.  She  appreciated  the  honor,  but  was  hardly 
prepared  for  it,  and  felt  rather  abashed  ;  but  "  Prince 
Hal,"  while  entertaining  his  other  guests  with  that 
brilliant  playfulness  for  which  he  was  so  remarkable, 
would  drop  an  occasional  word  into  her  ear  and 
attend  personally  to  her  plate.  Under  these  minis 
trations  she  was  beginning  to  feel  bland  and  self- 
possessed,  until  helped  to  an  artichoke, — something 
she  detested,  and  which  she  could  not  make  up  her 
mind  to  eat,  although  politeness  seemed  to  require 
the  sacrifice.  In  her  excited  state,  the  artichoke 

167 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

seemed  to  increase  in  bulk,  and  would,  without 
doubt,  attract  all  eyes  to  her  everlasting  discredit. 
But,  presto  !  the  great  man  who  had  brought  the 
trouble  upon  her  had  removed  it.  "So  you  don't 
like  artichokes,"  he  said.  "Why,  I  adore  them," 
and  straightway  the  conical,  over-scaled  vegetable 
was  appropriated  to  his  own  use. 

When  the  coffee  was  brought  in,  he  asked  Mrs. 
Clay  if  it  was  some  of  the  Liberia  coffee,  mentioning, 
with  evident  satisfaction,  that  a  present  of  several 
sacks  had  been  sent  to  him  by  the  colonists. 

On  one  very  inclement  day,  when  going  to  Lex 
ington,  he  overtook  an  elderly  man,  a  professional 
horse-trainer,  and  not  a  very  elevated  specimen  of 
his  class,  whose  gray  hairs  streaming  in  the  wind 
appealed  irresistibly.  He  stopped  his  carriage,  call 
ing  out,  "You  are  too  old  to  be  afoot  such  a  day  as 
this,  Mr.  ;  get  in  with  me." 

In  one  of  the  Eastern  cities  it  happened,  as  Clay 
was  walking  along,  a  large  crowd  gathered  quickly 
to  shake  hands,  that  it  entered  suddenly  into  the 
diabolical  head  of  a  printer's  boy,  after  he  had 
dipped  his  hand  in  the  ink-pot,  to  rush  out  and  offer 
his  paw.  It  was  not  refused.  "  Ah,  young  gentle 
man,"  said  the  genial  statesman,  with  his  captivating 
smile,  "I'll  pass  the  joke."  And  pass  it  he  did. 
Readiness  and  genuine  good-humor  never  fail  to 
arouse  enthusiasm  in  the  hearts  of  the  American 
sovereigns,  and,  with  loud  cheerings,  there  was  an 
eager  rush  to  obtain  from  Mr.  Clay's  hand  some 
trace  of  the  ebon  fluid. 

He  rarely  forgot  a  name  or  a  face,  and  occasionally 
he  was  put  to  the  test.  Meeting  a  lady  whom  he 
previously  had  met  once,  after  a  rather  long  interval, 
he  accosted  her  cordially.  The  lady,  being  the  wife 
of  a  distinctly  pronounced  Democrat,  and  willing  to 
"try him,"  said, — 

1 68 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

"  I  do  not  believe  you  know  who  I  am,  Mr.  Clay." 

' '  Certainly  I  do, "  was  his  immediate  answer.  ' '  You 
are  Mrs.  Daniel ." 

Inimitable  was  his  manner  towards  ladies,  in  its 
admirable  commingling  of  graceful  deference  and 
friendly  cordiality.  While  making  a  royal  progress — 
for  it  resembled  nothing  else — in  a  large  city,  he  was 
asked  to  designate  some  hours  for  receiving  ladies 
only,  so  that,  the  crowd  being  of  their  own  sex,  they 
would  escape  being  jostled  by  the  coarser  masculine 
element  coming  to  pay  respects  to  the  head  of  the 
Whig  Party.  Two  young  girls  were  among  the  early 
arrivals,  and  one  of  them  being  the  daughter  of  an 
old  friend,  he  said,  affectionately  kissing  her,  "I 
am  glad  to  see  you,  my  dear;  I  knew  your  mother." 
But  he  did  not  know  the  mother  of  her  exceedingly 
winsome  companion,  and  not  wishing  to  make  invid 
ious  distinctions,  he  put  the  question,  "  Haven't  you 
a  kiss  for  an  old  man?"  She  had. 

Kissing,  they  say,  is  catching,  and  the  ball,  once 
set  in  movement,  pursued  its  unchecked  course, 
going  merry  as  a  marriage-bell  till  the  coming  of 
a  lady  whose  appearance  plainly  indicated  that  she 
had  long  passed  the  epoch  of  youth  and  beauty  ;  but 
Mr.  Clay,  gallantly  keeping  to  his  line,  offered  her 
the  current  coin. 

"You  cannot  kiss  me,"  Mr.  Clay,  she  said,  coyly 
drawing  back.  So  far  as  was  apparent  to  the  eye, 
the  check  only  increased  his  ardor,  and  he  implored 
the  privilege,  but  the  lady  remained  obdurate. 

It  was  one  of  Clay's  peculiar  characteristics  that 
he  never  could,  by  any  effort  of  memory,  make 
quotations  correctly,  and  when  he  attempted  to 
embroider  his  orations  with  borrowed  gems  of 
rhetoric,  treacherously  they  slipped  from  his  grasp, 
even  if  he  had  known  them  a  short  time  before. 

Much  wonder  has  been  expressed  that  Clay,  with 
169 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

such  seeming  slight  equipment,  became  such  a  dis 
tinguished  lawyer.  The  truth  is  that  in  his  day 
"lawyers  were  largely  born,"  and  they  developed  ac 
cording  as  their  abilities  and  circumstances  permitted. 
There  was  not  a  law  school  in  the  country,  and  the 
student  depended  on  books  and  his  preceptor,  with 
what  training  he  could  get  in  the  courts,  sometimes 
assisting  his  proctor  in  preparation  of  cases.  To 
some  it  seems  as  if  there  must  have  been  a  very 
distinguished  bar  a  century  ago,  and  such  was  the 
case,  but  the  great  number  of  poor  lawyers  is 
forgotten.  Even  as  late  as  1845,  Henry  Clay,  Jr., 
who  had  all  the  advantages  of  his  father's  aid  and 
fame,  who  had  graduated  from  West  Point,  studied 
law,  and  was  an  exceptionally  gifted  young  man, 
found  it  so  difficult  to  make  a  living  at  the  bar  in 
Louisville  that  he  was  on  the  point  of  removing  to 
New  Orleans  when  the  Mexican  War  broke  out  and 
he  went  into  the  service. 

It  must,  however,  have  been  an  unusual  opportu 
nity  that  Clay  had  in  Richmond.  Chancellor  Wythe 
was  one  of  the  great  lawyers  of  his  day,  the  preceptor 
of  Marshall,  Jefferson,  and  many  others  with  whom 
Clay,  as  a  young  man,  came  in  contact.  Clay's  mind 
was  exceedingly  alert.  His  was  a  remarkable  gift 
of  perception,  and  needed  less  study  than  many 
others.  He  also  had  the  more  important  quality  of 
seeing  the  fundamental  principles  which  underlay  a 
case,  which  he  used  as  occasion  required.  He  was 
not  above  turning  any  technicality  to  his  own  ad 
vantage,  as  some  of  the  instances  adduced  indicate  ; 
but  he  was  more  than  a  pettifogger,  more  than  a 
shrewd  barrister.  He  was  a  profound  lawyer. 

Ordinarily  in  trying  cases  he  was  the  soul  of 
courtesy,  and,  when  having  a  bad  case,  seldom  used 
the  privilege  of  abusing  the  opposing  attorney.  On 
one  occasion  he  was  retained  in  a  very  important 

170 


PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

case  which  an  associate  handled  for  two  days  in  his 
absence,  and  had  apparently  lost.  It  involved  some 
exceedingly  technical  questions,  but  when  Clay  ar 
rived  on  the  scene  he  threw  away,  practically,  all 
his  associate  had  done,  presented  his  case  on 
entirely  different  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  novel 
grounds,  and  won  his  case.  He  was  always  dignified, 
and  in  later  years,  when  his  position  had  become  as 
sured,  there  was  some  little  air  of  superiority  in  the 
way  he  would  deal  with  judges  on  law  points.  Before 
a  jury  he  has  had  few  equals,  if  we  may  believe  the 
testimony  of  contemporaries,  as  well  as  the  fact  that 
he  was  so  uniformly  successful. 

In  the  Supreme  Court  he  was  always  listened  to 
with  great  respect  by  the  court ;  and  though  naturally 
the  percentage  of  success  was  not  so  large  there  as 
in  inferior  courts,  he  was  considered  a  dangerous  an 
tagonist  by  Webster,  Sergeant,  and  Binney. 


171 


XIV 

THE    PRESIDENTIAL    CANDIDATE 

CLAY  vs.  Jackson  or  Jackson  vs.  Clay  was  the 
situation  in  American  politics  for  more  than  twenty 
years.  At  the  outset  all  the  advantage  seemed  to  be 
with  Clay,  but  he  was  invariably  defeated,  either  in 
the  field,  in  Congress,  or  in  convention,  except  on  a 
few  points  which  brought  him  little  satisfaction.  It 
would  be  easy  to  take  a  mere  cursory  view  of  Clay's 
career  from  1824  onward  and  call  it  a  failure.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  in  these  years  that  he  achieved 
his  real  success,  though  he  lost  the  rewards  which  he 
craved. 

When  Clay  arrived  in  Washington  for  the  Decem 
ber  session  in  1831,  it  was  well  known  that  he  would 
be  nominated  without  opposition  for  the  Presidency, 
to  oppose  Jackson.  It  is  likely  he  would  never  have 
left  retirement  had  he  not  supposed  his  chances  really 
good  for  success.  While  in  Kentucky  the  sirens  had 
sung  very  loud  to  him,  but  when  he  got  to  Washing 
ton  he  was  undeceived,  if,  indeed,  he  had  ever  believed 
he  would  win.  The  convention  met  and  nominated 
Clay  in  a  way  that  was  intended  to  rouse  enthusiasm. 
The  roof  shook  as  the  delegates  cheered  every  men 
tion  of  his  name  ;  and  though  the  title  of  National 
Republican  was  still  adhered  to,  this  may  be  said  to 
have  been  the  birth  of  the  Whig  Party,— a  name 
that  had  no  meaning  in  this  country,  and  which  was 
in  some  respects  a  drawback.  John  Sergeant,  of 
Pennsylvania,  was  named  for  second  place,  and  the 
convention  adjourned  amid  much  enthusiasm.  In 
this  Clay,  apparently,  did  not  share,  for  a  few  days 

172 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

later  he  writes  to  a  friend  that  he  wishes  he  could 
partake  of  the  optimism  of  the  convention,  but  fears 
the  hold  of  Jackson  on  affairs  is  too  strong  to  be 
easily  shaken.  Still,  the  chances  were  much  more 
even  than  the  final  electoral  vote  showed.  Thurlow 
Weed,  one  of  the  most  astute  and  adroit  political 
managers  the  country  has  produced,  thought  that 
Clay  threw  away  a  positive  chance  of  election  by 
writing  the  so-called  Indiana  letter,  in  which  he 
alienated  from  himself  the  support  of  the  anti- 
Masons.  This  party  was  the  first,  but  not  the  last, 
in  this  country  founded  on  a  single  idea,  but  its 
strength  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  had  a  great  moral 
basis,  at  least  as  supposed.  The  charge  was  made 
that  one  Morgan,  who  had  abjured  Freemasonry, 
was  murdered  by  sending  him  over  Niagara  Falls 
because  he  had  threatened  to  write  a  book  exposing 
the  secrets  of  the  order.  The  story  may  have  had 
some  original  basis,  in  which  case  it  could  have 
affected  only  those  actually  concerned  in  the  perpe 
tration  of  the  deed  ;  but,  although  strenuosly  denied, 
the  report  grew,  and  public  indignation  became 
aroused  to  an  extent  that  is  almost  incredible.  The 
Masons  were  accused  of  all  sorts  of  crimes,  and 
every  secret  order  was  placed  under  the  ban.  Curi 
ously  enough,  the  matter  got  into  politics,  and  was 
adopted  with  great  enthusiasm  by  those  who  felt  the 
need  of  a  moral  issue,  and  especially  by  young  men 
who  wanted  a  chance  in  politics,  and  felt  that  they 
had  been  kept  out  too  long.  The  movement  spread 
like  wildfire  all  through  New  England  and  the 
Middle  Atlantic  States.  It  upset  all  calculations, 
turning  out  many  old  State  officers  and  defeat 
ing  members  of  Congress,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed 
likely  to  sweep  the  country.  It  was,  however, 
much  too  violent  to  last,  and  built  on  too  slim  a 
foundation.  Now,  most  of  the  young  men  who  were 

*73 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

engaged  in  the  anti-Masonic  campaign  were  ardent 
worshippers  of  Clay,  and  they  desired  to  have  him 
take  a  position  where  they  could  endorse  him  for  the 
nomination.  Weed  was  extremely  anxious,  and 
thought  for  a  time  that  such  an  accommodation  could 
be  brought  about.  Clay  saw  the  situation  very 
clearly,  and  here  was  a  chance  where  he  might  have 
been  diplomatic  without  sacrificing  principle,  and 
have  made  much  political  gain.  He  was,  however, 
made  of  sterner  stuff  than  the  frail  platform  of  the 
anti-Masons.  He  wrote  the  so-called  Indiana  letter, 
in  which  he  said  frankly  that  he  had  in  youth  joined 
a  Masonic  lodge,  and,  though  he  had  long  since 
ceased  attendance  on  its  meetings,  he  felt  that  there 
was  nothing  in  the  situation  to  make  the  order  an 
issue  in  politics  ;  that  he  preferred  that  every  man 
should  have  his  own  personal  views  in  religious, 
social,  and  benevolent  matters,  and  that  he  could  not 
lend  his  aid  to  the  anti-Masons.  This  was  manly 
and  courageous.  It  was  the  kind  of  stand  Clay 
always  took  when  there  was  a  clear  issue  of  morals 
or  ethics  in  politics.  He  was  bold  as  any  lion,  and 
those  who  call  him  a  trimmer  for  his  own  advance 
ment  misunderstand  his  position. 

After  this  the  anti-Masons  had  nothing  to  do  but 
nominate  a  separate  candidate,  whom  they  found  in 
former  Attorney-General  Wirt.  As  it  turned  out,  the 
anti-Masons  polled  only  about  three  per  cent,  of  the 
total  vote,  and  carried  but  one  State.  Weed  thought, 
however,  that  if  Clay  had  been  the  candidate,  he 
might  have  drawn  many  more  away  from  the  Demo 
cratic  Party,  as  the  Jacksonians  were  now  for  the  first 
time  called.  This  is  problematical.  It  was  the 
custom  of  the  day  to  interrogate  candidates,  and 
Clay  was  prompt  and  frank  in  his  response,  and  he 
certainly  never  regretted  any  harm  it  did  him,  sup 
posing  it  did  any  at  all. 

174 


THE    PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

This  was  before  the  days  of  popular  campaigns, 
when  the  race  for  the  Presidency  was  conducted 
largely  before  Legislatures  or  in  Congress,  and  when 
swinging  around  the  circle  was  unknown.  Clay 
knew  very  well  that  his  only  chance  of  success  lay 
in  being  personally  connected  with  certain  definite 
and  important  measures  which  should  commend 
themselves  to  the  public.  It  was  twenty-five  years 
since  he  had  first  entered  the  Senate,  and  he  now 
looked  upon  himself  as  an  old  man,  though  he  had 
twenty  years  more  of  active  service  ahead  of  him. 
When  Webster  wrote  him  that  he  was  needed  in 
the  Senate,  he  told  the  truth,  because  Jackson  was 
having  things  pretty  much  his  own  way  in  legislation. 
Benton  was  leading  the  forces  of  the  administration, 
and  though,  as  a  rule,  he  could  not  muster  a  majority, 
he  worked  to  keep  down  such  legislation  as  Jack 
son  opposed  with  very  general  success.  Clay  had 
been  absent  during  the  famous  oratorical  duel  be 
tween  Hayne  and  Webster,  but  his  sympathies  were 
all  with  the  latter.  There  never  was  an  instant  in 
Clay's  career  when  he  contemplated  secession  or  a 
breaking  up  of  the  Union  without  horror,  never  a 
time  when  he  did  not  believe  it  would  be  the  great 
est  of  calamities,  never  a  time  when  he  did  not  use 
his  utmost  powers  to  bring  about  an  accommodation 
and  preserve  the  Union  on  any  terms.  It  may  well 
be  claimed  that  he  was  in  error  as  to  his  methods, 
but  his  point  of  view  on  the  general  subject  was 
without  stain. 

Clay's  programme  was  brief,  and  consisted  of 
these  principal  items  : 

Recharter  of  the  National  Bank. 

A  new  and  more  highly  protective  tariff  bill. 

Distribution  of  the  land  surplus. 

Discussion  of  these  various  measures  belongs  to 
other  chapters,  and  they  will  be  considered  in  detail. 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

For  the  present  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  that  Clay 
conceived  a  very  broad  platform,  and  believed  he 
had  so  manoeuvred  that  Jackson  must  either  adopt 
it,  in  which  case  Clay  would  get  the  glory  and  the 
votes,  or  else  Jackson  would  lose  immeasurably  in 
public  esteem  by  opposing  it.  There  was  much  to 
support  this  idea.  The  only  objection  lay  in  the  fact 
that,  as  a  political  scheme,  it  was  artificial.  If  an 
administration  is  blamed  for  everything  that  happens 
when  it  is  in  power,  from  bad  weather  to  financial 
panics,  an  equally  fickle  public  is  likely  to  give  it 
credit  for  the  good  that  is  done,  whether  the  admin 
istration  is  responsible  or  not. 

These  three  measures  were  started  through,  and 
eventually  all  but  the  last  got  to  the  President, 
with  results  to  be  narrated  later.  In  the  mean  time 
there  was  another  affair  on  hand  that  called  for  at 
tention,  and  it  was  one  of  the  few  things  in  Clay's 
public  life  in  which  he  appears  the  narrow  politician 
instead  of  the  statesman,  the  petty  self-seeker  instead 
of  the  magnanimous  foe.  And,  as  usual  when  there 
is  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  a  woman  was  at  the  bot 
tom  of  it. 

When  Jackson  became  President  he  scandalized 
society  by  appointing,  as  his  Secretary  of  War,  John 
H.  Eaton,  the  same  who  is  supposed  to  have  written 
the  Kremer  letter.  The  trouble  arose,  not  over 
Eaton's  capacity,  but  because  of  his  wife.  Mrs. 
Eaton  had  been  in  earlier  years  Peggy  O'Neill,  and 
was  the  daughter  of  a  tavern-keeper,  at  whose  house 
many  members  of  Congress  resided.  Her  saucy 
beauty  was  a  by-word  of  the  town,  and  there  were 
rumors  concerning  her  virtue  which  were  so  well  cir 
culated  that  they  might  as  well  have  been  true,  so  far 
as  her  place  in  society  was  concerned.  She  had  mar 
ried  Timberlake,  a  purser  in  the  navy,  who  had  com 
mitted  suicide,  and  it  was  alleged  that  it  was  because 

176 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

of  his  wife's  indiscretions.  When,  shortly  afterwards, 
she  married  Eaton,  people  wagged  their  heads  and 
said  "Aha  !"  and  winked,  and  talked,  and  made  things 
as  uncomfortable  for  Peggy  as  was  possible.  Social 
Washington  was  much  more  select  and  stilted  then 
than  now,  and  when  Jackson  had  convinced  himself 
that  Eaton  and  his  wife  were  paragons,  he  had  no 
hesitation  in  making  the  appointment.  Great  was 
his  indignation  to  find  that  Mrs.  Eaton  was  not 
received  by  any  of  the  ladies  of  the  Cabinet,  at 
which  he  stamped  his  cane  and  swore  by  the  Eternal 
that  he  would  settle  the  matter  post-haste.  Much 
to  his  surprise  and  consternation,  the  wife  of  his 
nephew,  who  was  mistress  of  the  White  House, 
refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  Peggy,  and  she 
was  packed  off  to  Tennessee  in  a  hurry.  Then 
Jackson  gave  a  ball,  to  which  the  men  came  but  no 
women,  except  the  sycophants.  He  demanded  of 
his  Cabinet  that  they  make  their  wives  call  on  Mrs. 
Eaton.  Probably  some  of  them  tried  it,  with  the 
usual  result.  Do  as  he  could,  there  was  absolutely 
nothing  that  would  establish  Mrs.  Eaton  in  society, 
and  for  two  years  the  question  of  her  virtue  was 
about  the  only  interesting  one  before  the  coun 
try.  It  resulted  in  a  complete  break-up  of  the 
Cabinet.  Van  Buren  was  Secretary  of  State,  and 
he,  as  a  widower,  had  done  his  best  to  please  his 
chief  and  make  Mrs.  Eaton  a  social  success.  Grate 
ful  for  such  efforts,  Jackson  rewarded  him  with  the 
British  mission,  and  Van  Buren  sailed,  during  a 
recess  of  Congress,  for  his  post. 

It  became  part  of  the  programme  of  the  opposi 
tion  to  Jackson  to  refuse  confirmation  of  Van  Buren, 
— a  trick  that  was  not  only  petty,  but  had  its  reward 
in  injuring  those  who  concocted  it.  By  this  time 
Calhoun  had  broken  definitely  with  Jackson  and 
was  hatching  those  schemes  of  nullification  which 

177 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

were  later  to  develop  into  secession.  It  served  his 
purpose  to  join  with  Webster  and  Clay  in  opposi 
tion  to  Jackson.  All  these  men  were  ambitious, 
but  to  get  rid  of  Jackson  was  the  prime  necessity, 
after  which  they  were  content  to  fight  the  matter 
out  alone.  The  accusations  against  Van  Buren  were 
petty  and  soon  evaporated.  Benton  took  up  the 
cudgels  and,  in  his  blunt  way,  convinced  all  who 
had  no  political  cobwebs  before  their  eyes  that  there 
was  nothing  in  the  charges  against  Van  Buren.  All 
was  in  vain,  and,  when  confirmation  was  refused, 
Benton  well  remarked  that  they  had  broken  a  min 
ister  and  made  a  Vice-President.  This  proved  to  be 
the  case.  Van  Buren,  at  Jackson's  demand,  was 
put  on  the  ticket,  and  finally  succeeded  to  the  Presi 
dency,  something  that  probably  would  not  have 
occurred  had  he  been  allowed  to  remain  in  Great 
Britain  as  minister.  A  distinguished  British  statesman 
remarked  to  Van  Buren,  on  hearing  of  the  unusual 
slight  put  upon  him,  that  he  ought  not  to  mind  it, 
as  it  was  frequently  a  great  advantage  to  a  public 
man  to  be  the  subject  of  an  outrage.  It  proved  so 
in  his  case. 

When  Clay  had  secured  from  Congress  a  recharter 
of  the  bank  and  a  new  tariff  bill  which  reduced 
duties  as  a  whole,  but  was  more  strongly  protective 
of  those  goods  where  there  was  American  competi 
tion,  he  thought  he  had  Jackson  in  a  hole.  He 
rather  expected  that  he  would  sign  the  recharter 
and  veto  the  tariff.  This  would  be  to  Clay's  in 
terest,  as  every  one  knew  that  Jackson  had  been 
opposed  to  the  bank,  which  was  friendly  to  Clay, 
and  that  Clay  was  the  champion  of  the  tariff  was 
undisputed.  Jackson  did  exactly  the  opposite,  and 
in  this  he  showed  more  political  acumen  than  Clay 
gave  him  credit  for.  Indeed,  it  never  seemed  pos 
sible  for  the  Whigs  to  understand  that  they  were 

178 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

opposing  a  man  of  extraordinary  intellectuality,  and 
one  whose  lack  of  experience  in  politics  was  more 
than  made  up  by  his  boldness,  his  shrewdness,  and 
his  use  of  the  means  at  hand  to  accomplish  his  pur 
poses.  Jackson  may  have  started  the  debauchery 
of  politics  in  the  degradation  of  the  civil  service, 
but  he  was  no  man's  fool.  He  vetoed  the  bank 
measure,  taking  to  himself  great  credit  for  having 
opposed  a  giant  monopoly  that  was  partly  a  foreign 
institution  and  was  gnawing  at  the  vitals  of  the 
republic,  while  he  signed  the  tariff  bill,  and  thereby 
made  himself  solid  with  the  voters  all  over  the 
country,  who  believed  there  was  much  virtue  in 
protection.  The  game  he  played  for  was  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  he  won  it,  though  previously  it  appeared 
as  if  Clay  would  sweep  the  State.  The  Whigs  made 
a  great  deal  of  noise,  but  they  never  had  enough 
votes  in  Pennsylvania  and  in  many  other  States. 

Clay  was  discomfited  at  the  result,  and  discovered 
too  late  his  mistake.  By  this  time  the  popular  vote 
prevailed  in  choosing  electors  in  all  but  a  few  States. 
Clay's  showing  was  relatively  worse  than  eight  years 
previously.  He  carried  only  the  States  of  Con 
necticut,  Delaware,  Kentucky,  Maryland,  Massa 
chusetts,  and  Rhode  Island,  with  forty-nine  votes, 
while  Jackson  had  two  hundred  and  nineteen,  with 
eighteen  scattering  and  two  vacancies.  On  the 
popular  vote  he  was  much  nearer  Jackson,  his  vote 
being  about  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  latter's.  The 
defeat,  however,  was  overwhelming. 

In  1836  Clay  was  not  a  candidate,  and  in  1840  he 
was  cheated  out  of  the  nomination.  In  1844  he 
was  once  more  made  the  standard-bearer  in  the 
most  exciting  campaign  the  country  had  ever  known, 
and  he  lost  by  a  hair.  In  many  respects  the  cam 
paign  exactly  forty  years  later  resembled  it  both 
in  the  personality  of  the  candidates  and  in  the 

179 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

fact  that  personalities  were  indulged  in  to  a  greater 
extent  than  ever  before,  and  that  New  York  de 
cided  the  result  by  a  close  vote. 

Clay  was  an  old  man,  but  still  vigorous.  He 
had  been  in  retirement  for  a  short  time  at  Ashland, 
preparing  for  the  campaign  that  was  coming.  He 
was  the  logical  candidate  of  the  party.  During  the 
Tyler  apostasy,  Clay  had  stood  up  and  borne  the 
brunt  of  things.  He  had  made  the  party  pro 
gramme  and  had,  as  far  as  possible,  carried  it  out. 
All  there  was  of  Whigism  was  personified  in  Clay, 
who  naturally  became  the  standard-bearer.  The 
outlook  was  hopeful,  in  spite  of  Tyler's  efforts  to 
wreck  the  party.  He  had  suffered  the  fate  of  most 
apostates,  had  found  himself  without  a  party,  and 
resentment  against  him  was  a  good  asset  of  the 
Whigs.  The  country  was  in  fairly  prosperous  con 
dition,  the  only  great  question  that  loomed  up  being 
that  of  the  annexation  of  Texas.  We  have  seen 
how  Clay  was  among  those  disgusted  with  the  conduct 
of  Monroe  in  giving  up  Texas  in  the  first  place. 
He  even  wished  to  prevent  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty  with  Spain,  so  as  to  get  Texas  restored, 
though  he  failed. 

Clay,  however,  was  not  one  of  those  who  joined  in 
the  senseless  cry  of  "  reannexation"  of  Texas.  By 
our  own  act  we  had  refused  the  soil,  and  had  neither 
legal  nor  moral  claim  to  it.  Texas  had,  however, 
achieved  a  quasi-independence  on  her  own  account, 
through  the  efforts  of  a  lot  of  American  adventurers, 
and  was  now  clamoring  for  admission  to  the  United 
States.  This  was  the  great  question  in  American 
politics.  On  former  occasions  Texas  had  been 
refused,  pending  a  more  settled  state  of  affairs,  and 
now  it  was  plainly  stated  by  Mexico  that  any  effort 
on  our  part  to  annex  Texas  would  be  considered 
tantamount  to  a  declaration  of  war.  This  did  not 

180 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

alarm  either  Tyler  or  Calhoun,  his  Secretary  of  State. 
They  did  not  expect  war,  for  they  hoped  to  buy  up 
the  Mexican  government ;  but  in  no  case  were  they 
afraid  of  such  a  contingency.  The  administration 
took  the  extraordinary  step  of  securing  Texas  an 
nexation  by  treaty  with  Texas  alone.  This  imme 
diately  gave  rise  to  bitter  opposition,  and  no  one  was 
more  opposed  to  the  treaty  than  Clay.  He  pointed 
out  that  this  was  not  the  proper  way  to  secure 
territory,  as  the  House  of  Representatives  ought  to 
be  consulted  in  such  an  important  proceeding.  Also, 
he  was  opposed  to  the  treaty  because  it  absolutely 
ignored  all  claims  of  Mexico.  Whatever  the  Texans 
may  have  thought  of  their  position,  Mexico  had 
never  conceded  independence,  and  was  still  fighting 
fitfully  to  maintain  her  sovereignty.  This  was  com 
mon  sense  aside  from  the  question  of  slavery,  which 
loomed  up  large  in  the  background,  and  which  was 
in  reality  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter.  In  the 
course  of  our  national  development  the  Northern  or 
free  States  had  come  to  outnumber  the  slave,  and  it 
was  evident  that  the  disproportion  must  grow  larger. 
Practically  all  of  the  Southern  territory  was  carved 
up  into  slave  States,  and,  with  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise  line  in  force,  there  was  no  chance  for  exten 
sion  of  slavery,  except  across  our  borders,  and  Texas 
was  the  chief  hope  of  that  school  of  statesmen, 
headed  by  Calhoun,  who  insisted  that  the  republic 
would  fall  unless  there  were  exactly  the  same  number 
of  free  and  slave  States.  Texas  was  large  enough 
for  five  States,  and  these  would  restore  the  equi 
librium.  Calhoun  was  bending  all  his  energies  in 
favor  of  the  treaty,  but  it  soon  became  apparent 
that  it  was  not  sustained  by  the  sentiment  of  the 
North,  while  the  South  was  by  no  means  unani 
mous  for  it.  Clay  and  Benton  were  slave-holders, 
but  opposed  to  any  such  rape  of  Mexico  without 

181 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

a  general  agreement  of  all  interests  concerned. 
Other  Southern  statesmen  took  the  same  view. 
They  did  not  care  to  have  slavery  injected  into 
politics,  and  were  certainly  opposed  to  making  the 
extension  of  slave  soil  the  sine  qua  non  of  a  con 
tinuance  of  the  Union. 

Texas  was  a  question  on  which  every  candidate 
must  speak  his  mind.  Clay  pondered  long  over  the 
subject,  and  then  issued  his  so-called  "  Raleigh 
Letter,"  in  which  he  explained  his  views  thoroughly. 
It  was  a  well-tempered  document,  in  which  Texas 
annexation  was  discussed,  from  beginning  to  end, 
in  Clay's  very  best  style  of  thought  and  expression, 
and  Clay's  best  was  unexcelled.  It  was  a  statesman 
like  document,  in  which  it  was  explained  that  we 
had  not  the  slightest  claim  to  the  country;  that 
Americans  had  been  engaged  in  the  Texas  revo 
lution,  and  there  was  much  foreign  distrust  of  our 
conduct  in  the  matter ;  and,  finally,  that  the  whole 
issue  at  stake  was  one  of  strengthening  one  section 
of  the  country.  This  would  undoubtedly  give  rise 
to  a  similar  feeling  in  the  North  when  an  effort 
would  be  made  to  secure  Canada,  and  in  the  end  we 
should  get  into  very  serious  trouble.  Clay  had 
wanted  Texas  when  it  was  possible  to  get  it 
honorably,  had  even  tried,  as  Secretary  of  State,  to 
purchase  the  territory  from  Mexico,  but  without 
avail.  Now  he  was  opposed  to  securing  it,  unless 
by  the  consent  of  Mexico,  since  any  other  course 
meant  war. 

When  Clay  sat  down  to  consider  a  subject  on  its 
merits  and  without  regard  to  any  other  considera 
tions,  he  had  almost  the  gift  of  prophecy  and  was 
generally  unerring.  Had  he  kept  his  mouth  shut 
and  his  pen  still  after  this,  had  some  kind  friend 
locked  him  up  in  his  ice-house  or  sent  him  to  the 
woods,  he  would  have  been  President  without  any 

182 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

doubt.  But  now  Clay's  constitutional  weakness  mani 
fested  itself  once  more.  He  began  to  apologize 
and  explain  because  he  found  his  letter  was  not 
well  received  in  the  South.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  completely  analyze  the  motives  which  led  Clay 
into  his  singular  course.  No  doubt  he  wanted  to  win 
most  ardently ;  but  Clay  was  courageous  enough 
to  be  defeated  at  any  time  for  the  sake  of  a  principle, 
and  it  is  not  likely  that  desire  of  personal  victory 
alone  made  him  hedge.  Doubtless  he  was  grieved  to 
find  that  so  many  of  his  Southern  Whig  friends 
differed  from  him.  Doubtless  he  was  somewhat 
alarmed  when  he  found  that  the  Calhoun  tribe  was 
in  arms  against  him  once  more,  threatening  disunion. 
Doubtless  he  found  his  own  views  actually  changing 
under  pressure.  Such  motives  or  others  led  Clay 
finally  to  abandon  an  impregnable  position.  So  far 
as  the  Southern  Whigs  were  concerned,  they  were  so 
far  committed  to  Clay's  position  on  the  Texas  ques 
tion  that  it  really  did  not  matter  that  the  Raleigh 
letter  angered  the  Calhoun  legions.  The  latter  were 
not  to  be  appeased  in  any  event,  and  it  was  madness 
for  Clay  to  attempt  to  do  so.  The  letter  was  well 
received  in  the  North,  where  the  rising  tide  of  oppo 
sition  to  slavery  threatened  ill  for  the  Democracy. 
Clay  was  against  national  dishonor,  against  slavery 
extension,  unless  by  general  consent.  That  was  his 
moral  position,  and  it  was  received  with  enthusiasm. 
If  Clay  had  not  ever  been  more  willing  to  appease 
his  enemies  than  to  placate  his  friends,  he  would 
have  let  the  heathen  rage,  and  fought  it  out  squarely 
on  that  line,  no  matter  what  the  result. 

No ;  Clay  must  equivocate,  and  began  a  series  of 
letters  intended  for  Southern  consumption,  in  which 
he  wished  it  understood  that  he  was  not  opposed 
to  the  annexation  of  Texas  per  se,  but  only  to  the 
way  in  which  it  was  brought  about.  Now,  this 

183 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

really  had  been  his  position  all  along,  and  he  had 
so  stated  it,  rather  mildly,  in  the  Raleigh  letter. 
It  seemed  to  him  no  harm  to  enlarge  upon  this  point 
for  the  benefit  of  his  Southern  friends,  and  so  there 
appeared  the  Alabama  letter.  Clay  was  not  wholly  to 
blame  for  this.  He  had  been  urged  to  write  his  views 
because  the  situation  had  changed  somewhat  by 
the  refusal  of  the  Senate  to  ratify  the  treaty  with 
Texas.  Instead  of  pointing  to  his  Raleigh  letter, 
he  proceeded,  in  two  letters  to  Stephen  F.  Miller, 
of  Tuscaloosa,  Alabama,  to  explain  himself  more 
fully,  in  which  he  made  two  distinct  errors.  He 
denied  that  he  was  courting  the  abolitionists,  and 
claimed  to  have  been  more  abused  by  them  than 
any  man  in  America.  His  language,  however,  was 
such  that  wounded  the  abolitionists  unnecessarily, 
and  they  never  forgave  him.  His  second  error 
was  to  say  in  this  letter,  "  Far  from  having  any  per 
sonal  objection  to  the  annexation  of  Texas,  I  should 
be  glad  to  see  it,  without  dishonor,  without  war,  with 
the  common  consent  of  the  Union,  and  upon  just 
and  fair  terms."  While  this  was  true  of  most  of 
those  who  opposed  the  treaty,  it  was  the  most  in 
expedient  statement  a  candidate  could  make.  In  the 
first  place,  it  put  him  in  the  position  of  a  trimmer, 
which  was  bad  enough  ;  but  advantage  was  taken 
of  the  language  he  used  to  utterly  distort  his 
meaning.  The  Democratic  press  and  speakers 
seized  upon  the  expression  and  cut  it  off  so  that 
it  read,  "  Far  from  having  any  personal  objection 
to  the  annexation  of  Texas,  I  should  be  glad  to  see 
it."  This  was  outrageously  unjust,  and  deceived 
only  those  who  were  not  familiar  with  the  tech 
nique  of  the  situation,  but  it  was  effective.  The 
Democrats  proudly  claimed  that  really  there  was 
no  use  harping  on  the  Texas  question  any  more, 
as  Polk  and  Clay  were  in  absolute  accord  on  the 

184 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

subject  This  maddened  the  Whig  leaders,  but  it 
convinced  a  large  section  of  the  masses  at  a  time 
when  campaign  lies  were  not  so  easily  run  down  as 
at  present 

The  two  Alabama  letters  soon  produced  such  a 
commotion  that  Clay  perceived  his  mistake,  and 
once  more  tried  to  get  himself  back  to  the  Raleigh 
letter  standard,  but  all  in  vain.  A  man  can  change 
his  mind  in  politics  only  once  in  a  campaign.  The 
more  Clay  wrote  the  worse  the  situation  became. 
The  abolitionists,  both  of  the  Birney  and  Garrison 
wings,  were  disgusted.  Garrison  never  had  any  use 
for  Clay,  but  Garrison  was  too  radical  for  most  of 
the  abolitionists,  and,  while  they  liked  to  have  him 
agitate,  they  would  not  allow  him  to  lead.  Once 
more  Birney  was  put  up  to  carry  the  standard  of 
the  Liberty  party.  Birney  was  one  of  Clay's  oldest 
friends,  knew  his  real  convictions  on  slavery,  and 
despised  him  because  he  felt  he  was  not  living  up  to 
them.  Birney  was  of  Scotch  descent,  and  his  con 
victions  were  unalterable.  He  had  long  hoped  that 
Clay  would  be  an  effective  instrument  in  bringing 
about  emancipation.  Now  that  such  hopes  were 
dead,  and  he  was  opposing  Clay,  there  was  no  reason 
for  any  false  delicacy  in  the  canvass.  Birney  told 
his  followers  that  Clay  was  not  to  be  trusted,  and 
they  believed  him,  though  in  so  doing  they  elected 
Polk.  There  are  certain  men,  and  especially  at 
certain  times,  to  whom  this  sort  of  reasoning  is  con 
vincing,  but  it  taxes  credulity  and  makes  any  logi 
cal  reasoning  impossible.  Here  was  Clay  fighting 
against  the  annexation  of  Texas,  except  on  grounds 
that  were  satisfactory  to  all  concerned,  while  Polk 
was  known  to  be  eager  to  get  Texas  on  any  terms 
whatever.  The  Liberty  party  preferred  the  devil  to 
the  deep  sea  and,  consciously  or  not,  made  Folk's 
election  certain.  It  was  in  this  campaign  that  Clay 

185 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

had  the  talk  on  slavery  with  the  Quaker  Menden- 
hall,  as  is  elsewhere  narrated. 

The  campaign  turned  out  to  be  one  of  unparalleled 
virulence.  That  of  1 840  had  been  enthusiastic,  but, 
on  the  whole,  respectable.  Old  Tippecanoe  was 
personally  unassailable,  but  the  campaign  was  one 
long  debauch  of  enthusiasm.  In  1844  personalities 
entered  into  the  campaign  in  a  way  that  shocked 
the  public  and  certainly  did  harm  to  Clay.  It  was 
claimed  on  the  stump,  through  the  press,  by  pam 
phlets  and  broadsides,  that  Clay  was  a  monster  of 
iniquity.  Some  of  these  pamphlets  are  still  preserved 
and  are  curiosities.  Clay  was  said  to  be  a  profane 
swearer,  a  gambler,  and  a  violator  of  the  Sabbath. 
None  of  the  more  serious  charges  that  have  been 
more  or  less  covertly  circulated  appeared  in  these 
pamphlets  nor  in  any  of  the  printed  speeches,  and, 
if  there  had  been  any  foundation  for  them,  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  they  would  have  been  with 
held,  as  the  documents  were  brutally  frank.  Thus, 
it  is  solemnly  stated  that  on  February  6,  1838,  while 
Clay  stood  at  the  rail  in  the  back  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  of  which  Polk  was  Speaker,  some 
ruling  was  made  which  displeased  Clay,  whereupon, 
in  a  loud  voice,  he  called  to  the  Speaker,  "  Go 
home,  G — d  d — n  you,  where  you  belong." 

Such  a  charge  in  these  days  would  have  no  effect, 
since  people  are  too  well  trained  to  the  wiles  of 
politics  to  believe  one-tenth  of  the  stories  that  are 
told.  Any  one  who  knew  Clay  must  have  known 
that  the  story  was  a  baseless  fabrication.  Clay  did 
swear,  but  that  he  should  have  used  such  language 
in  the  House  is  as  likely  as  that  he  should  have 
walked  up  and  shot  the  Speaker.  It  is  unthinkable  ; 
but  it  is  sad  to  relate  that,  in  the  rural  districts, 
especially  of  New  England,  New  York,  and  Penn 
sylvania,  the  story  was  believed.  Polk  was  a  Pres- 

186 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

byterian  and  a  strict  church  member,  and  at  this 
time  Clay  had  not  been  baptized.  It  was  also  re 
lated  that  at  a  public  vendue  of  his  son's  goods  in 
Kentucky,  when  there  was  money  to  be  raised  for 
some  creditors,  Clay  became  excited  because  prices 
were  not  up  to  his  expectations  and  yelled  out,  "  I 
don't  care  a  G — d  d — n  whether  the  creditors  get  a 
d — d  cent  or  not,"  and  more  to  the  same  effect, — 
a  statement  that  was  as  silly  as  it  was  untrue. 

Then  came  stories  of  his  gambling.  All  sorts  of 
affidavits  were  produced  to  show  that  Clay  was  a 
gambler.  Clay  never  denied  that  he  played  for 
stakes,  but  that  he  was  a  gambler  or  ever  frequented 
a  gaming-table  was  untrue.  This  his  enemies  well 
knew,  but  they  used  affidavits  from  all  sorts  of  per 
sons  to  show  that  Clay  played  for  money,  even  for 
very  high  stakes,  and  that  a  gaming-table  would 
be  set  up  in  the  White  House  was  their  contention, 
in  case  Clay  was  elected.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Clay 
never  allowed  a  card  at  Ashland,  and  he  was  very 
strict  about  deportment  at  his  home.  That  he 
travelled  on  Sunday  was  considered  a  terrible  viola 
tion  of  the  Scriptural  command. 

Then  some  one  was  sent  down  to  Ashland  to  nose 
around  and  see  whether  or  not  the  slaves  were  well 
treated.  This  errand  proved  well-nigh  fruitless  ;  but 
the  spy  managed  to  get  hold  of  some  anonymous 
negroes,  with  whom  he  talked,  and  though  his  alle 
gations  were  indefinite,  the  attempt  was  to  have  the 
public  believe  that  Clay  did  not  treat  his  slaves  with 
that  kindness  he  had  claimed  in  his  talk  with  Men- 
denhall ;  that  they  were  badly  fed  and  not  well 
treated.  How  much  effect  such  charges  had  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  but  the  result  of  all  these  charges, 
letters,  and  experiences  was  that  the  Liberty  party 
made  great  accessions  of  strength,  and  almost  en 
tirely  from  the  Whigs, — enough  to  ruin  Clay.  Clay's 

187 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

refusal  to  endorse  the  Native  American  movement 
also  cost  him  many  votes  in  New  York  and  Penn 
sylvania. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  tremendous  en 
thusiasm  for  the  ticket  by  the  regular  party  organi 
zation.  Every  effort  was  put  forth  to  advance  the 
success  of  the  cause.  Mass-meetings  were  held  all 
over  the  country,  and  an  effort  made  to  work  the 
same  sort  of  racket  as  was  so  successful  in  1840, 
when  Old  Tippecanoe  carried  the  nation  by  storm. 
It  was  not  entirely  successful,  as  there  was  now  a 
moral  issue  in  the  campaign  on  which  people  pon 
dered,  and  votes  were  not  made  by  mere  enthu 
siasm.  There  were  Clay  almanacs  and  Clay  song 
sters  issued.  The  newspapers  of  that  day  were 
feeble  instruments  compared  with  the  present,  and 
made  little  effort  to  report  the  campaign,  so  that 
resort  was  largely  had  to  handbills  and  broadsides 
and  pamphlets.  One  of  the  most  successful  issues 
was  "The  Clay  Minstrel,"  which  contained  a  lot  of 
political  doggerel  for  use  at  mass-meetings.  More 
feeble  efforts  in  the  line  of  lyric  poetry  it  would  be 
hard  to  find,  and  it  would  seem  as  if  the  Whig 
spirit  of  commercialism  must  have  smothered  the 
fires  of  genius.  "The  Minstrel,"  however,  was  very 
popular,  and  is  to-day  an  interesting  document  A 
few  verses  are  quoted  to  give  an  idea  of  the  inspira 
tion  of  the  hour  : 

' '  Henry  Clay,  when  a  boy  without  friends  or  a  home, 
Left  a  poor  orphan  lad  on  the  cold  earth  to  roam  ; 
But  the  fire  of  his  genius  flashed  early  to  view, 
And  he  filled  all  with  wonder  the  older  he  grew." 

Here  is  another  : 

"  John  C.  Calhoun,  my  jo,  John, 

I'm  sorry  for  your  fate  ; 
You've  nullified  the  laws, 
You've  nullified  your  State. 
iSS 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

You've  nullified  your  party,  John, 

And  principles,  you  know, 
And  now  you've  nullified  yourself, 

John  C,  Calhoun,  my  jo," 

Another  begins, — 

' '  For  Harry  Clay  and  liberty 
Let  all  the  people  shout.'' 

One  more  must  suffice  : 

"  Come  all  ye  bold  lads  of  old  '40 
That  rallied  round  Tippecanoe, 
And  give  us  your  hearts  and  your  voices 
For  Harry,  the  noble  and  true." 

It  is  evident  that  such  doggerel  was  not  likely  to 
inspire  a  great  deal  of  enthusiasm  in  and  of  itself, 
but  it  became  very  popular,  and  by  midsummer  it 
appeared  from  a  cursory  view  that  practically  every 
one  was  going  to  vote  for  Clay.  In  this  campaign 
the  "Mill  Boy  of  the  Slashes"  slogan  was  raised,  and 
it  was  attempted  to  show  that  Clay  was  one  who  had 
risen  from  obscurity  and  poverty  to  the  high  posi 
tion  he  held  by  his  own  unaided  efforts,  which  the 
reader  of  this  book  will  see  was  not  strictly 
correct. 

If  there  was  one  State  upon  which  Clay  consid 
ered  he  could  count  with  absolute  confidence,  it  was 
Pennsylvania.  True,  it  had  voted  against  him  in 
1832,  but  now  the  situation  was  different.  Having 
tasted  the  bitterness  of  a  sliding-scale  tariff,  it 
was  becoming  prosperous  under  the  tariff  of  1842, 
which  was  strongly  protective.  This  was  the  Clay 
tariff,  and  no  one  else  could  claim  credit  for  it,  cer 
tainly  not  the  Democratic  party  which  had  opposed 
it.  Unfortunately  for  Clay,  he  never  had  good  party 
managers,  and  Pennsylvania  was  taken  from  him  by 

189 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

a  trick  which  cost  that  State  dear.  Dallas  was  on 
the  Democratic  ticket,  and,  as  a  Pennsylvanian,  it 
was  made  to  appear  that  he  was  as  good  a  tariff  man 
as  Clay.  The  Democrats  raised  the  slogan,  "  Polk, 
Dallas,  and  the  Tariff  of  1842."  This  was  stealing 
thunder  with  a  vengeance,  but  it  was  worked  so 
adroitly  that  it  prevailed,  and  the  State  which,  in  its 
heart,  loved  and  admired  Henry  Clay  as  much  as 
any,  went  for  the  opposition,  deluded  into  thinking 
that  it  was  electing  its  own  son  and  preserving  its 
industries.  There  were  few  tears  shed  for  the  woes 
of  that  State  when,  a  little  later,  Dallas  gave  the  cast 
ing  vote  in  favor  of  the  low-tariff  measure  of  1 847. 

Returns  came  in  slowly  in  those  days,  and  when 
New  York  was  found  to  be  very  close,  there  was  a 
fever  of  excitement  for  many  days.  At  last  it 
appeared  that  the  tide  was  against  the  Whigs.  The 
conscientious  abolitionists  had  deserted  Clay  for 
Birney,  and  elected  Polk.  The  curious  psychological 
phenomenon  was  exhibited  of  a  country  that  wanted 
to  elect  Clay  up  to  the  last  minute,  then  defeating 
him  and  immediately  afterwards  going  into  spasms 
of  hysterics  over  the  result.  It  was  common  to  say 
of  Clay  :  "  Had  any  man  such  friends?"  Indeed,  no 
other  man  ever  had,  especially  such  faithless  ones  ; 
for  if  there  is  any  thing  which  a  study  of  the 
period  makes  certain,  it  is  that  the  people  wanted 
Clay,  especially  on  the  two  occasions  when  he  was 
not  nominated  and  could  have  been  elected,  and  on 
this  occasion,  when  victory  seemed  assured.  For 
weeks  people  would  not  believe  that  Clay  had  been 
defeated,  and  when  it  was  found  to  be  all  too  true, 
there  were  many  excuses  offered,  some  of  which  were 
more  or  less  convincing,  but  the  principal  one  was 
that  he  did  not  get  votes  enough. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  this  was  the  first 
campaign  where  it  was  alleged  that  there  was  sys- 

190 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

tematic  cheating  at  the  polls  in  many  States.  Of 
course,  there  was  more  or  less  of  this,  and  it  is 
hardly  fair  to  suppose  that  it  was  all  on  one  side,  but 
there  was  some  consolation  for  the  defeated  party  in 
examining  the  returns  from  a  number  of  States 
where  it  was  claimed  there  were  more  votes  cast  than 
the  census-rolls  or  poll-lists  could  possibly  allow. 
These  charges  were  made  in  many  States,  but  they 
were  never  investigated  officially,  and  the  result  was 
not  changed.  After  all  was  said  on  the  subject,  the 
indubitable  fact  remained  that  Clay  had  defeated  him 
self  by  his  letters  and  vacillating  position  on  the  an 
nexation  of  Texas.  Betting  on  the  result  was  also 
greater  in  this  campaign  than  on  any  previous 
occasion. 

The  country  had  given  its  voice  against  Clay,  and 
if  there  is  anything  in  such  elections,  its  voice  was 
for  war  with  Mexico,  which  Tyler  proceeded  to  bring 
on  by  his  despicable  trick. 

In  the  voting,  Clay  made  a  much  better  showing 
than  at  any  time  previously.  The  electoral  vote 
stood:  Polk,  170;  Clay,  105.  The  popular  vote 
was  much  closer,  Clay  coming  within  38,000  of  Polk, 
while  Birney  had  over  62,000.  Polk  was  a  minority 
President  on  the  popular  vote,  and  his  majority  in 
New  York  over  Clay  was  only  5,000,  while  Birney 
had  15,000,  almost  wholly  drawn  from  Whig  sources. 
Clay  carried  eleven  States  and  Polk  fifteen.  Of  the 
slave  States,  Clay  carried  only  Delaware,  Kentucky, 
Maryland,  North  Carolina,  and  Tennessee, — not  one 
of  the  cotton  States  that  he  had  made  a  bid  for, — 
showing  that  the  Calhoun  programme  of  Texas  an 
nexation  or  trouble  was  gaining  ground.  In  the  North, 
Clay  carried  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  New  Jersey, 
Ohio,  Rhode  Island,  and  Vermont.  In  many  of  the 
States  the  vote  was  close,  but  the  vote  of  New  York, 
that  would  have  saved  him,  went  to  Polk,  and  even 

191 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

this  he  would  have  gained  if  Silas  Wright  had  not 
left  the  Senate  against  his  wish  and  made  the  race 
for  Governor,  after  refusing  the  nomination  for  Vice- 
President  owing  to  his  anger  that  his  warm  friend, 
Van  Buren,  had  been  denied  the  nomination  which 
was  his  by  right,  and  of  which  he  was  cheated  as  had 
been  Clay,  and  was  to  thus  suffer  again. 

The  bitterness  of  despair  settled  down  on  the  Whigs 
and  though  they  did  not  lose  their  love  for  Clay,  he 
never  had  another  chance  to  be  elected  or  de 
feated. 

In  Clay's  time  the  modern  Presidential  campaign 
had  not  been  evolved.  Prior  to  1840  there  was 
little  of  the  spontaneous  enthusiasm  of  modern  times, 
and  stump-speaking  was  much  less  in  vogue,  or  at 
least  on  a  very  different  scale.  In  State  or  local 
campaigns  it  was  then  customary  in  Kentucky  for 
rival  candidates  to  speak  together  and  deal  in 
the  sharpest  invective,  but  Presidential  contests  were 
on  a  more  dignified  scale.  The  candidates  never 
spoke,  but  were  accustomed  to  write  letters  which 
usually  did  a  great  deal  more  harm  than  good.  In 
1824,  when  Clay  was  first  a  candidate,  most  of  the 
electors  were  chosen  by  the  Legislatures.  This  con 
tinued  in  the  case  of  South  Carolina  down  to  the 
Civil  War.  In  1832  Clay  made  no  speeches,  but 
there  were  mass-meetings  held  in  many  places,  and 
the  bank  and  tariff  people  were  very  active  in  put 
ting  forth  the  claims  of  their  candidates.  Philadel 
phia  was  alive  with  enthusiasm,  and  for  a  time  it  was 
supposed  that  the  interest  manifested  in  the  great 
manufacturing  centres  of  Pennsylvania  indicated  that 
Clay  would  carry  it;  but  this  proved  a  vain  hope, 
since  Jackson  was  able  to  pose  as  just  as  good  a 
tariff  man  as  Clay.  The  newspapers  in  those  days 
were  hardly  worthy  the  name  as  compared  with  those 
of  modern  times.  One  searches  the  musty  files  in 

192 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATE 

vain  to  get  much  information  of  the  actual  progress 
of  the  campaign,  but  the  columns  are  filled  with 
long  editorials  and  letters  from  prominent  citizens. 

The  "  Tippecanoe"  campaign  of  1840  was  en 
tirely  novel  in  American  politics,  and  disgusted  a 
great  many  persons  who  saw  in  the  extraordinary 
enthusiasm  of  the  people  a  species  of  demagogy  that 
boded  ill  for  the  country.  The  Whigs  in  1844 
endeavored  to  revive  these  meetings,  and  did  so  with 
some  success.  After  the  campaign  was  fairly  well 
on,  Clay  spoke  only  at  some  dinners,  which  were  a 
favorite  pastime  in  politics,  and  wrote  letters,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  with  most  disastrous  results. 

He  maintained  his  dignity  on  all  occasions,  and 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  had  little  belief  in 
the  manufactured  enthusiasm  employed  in  some 
sections.  The  attempt  to  make  him  out  the  product 
of  American  soil  and  circumstances,  without  giving 
credit  to  his  innate  powers,  must  have  rather  dis 
gusted  him.  "The  Mill  Boy  of  the  Slashes"  was  a 
title  that  ill  befitted  his  general  deportment.  His 
pride  was  of  a  very  lofty  sort,  and  he  never  stooped 
to  demagogy.  One  of  the  few  occasions  when  he 
did  refer  to  his  career  was  in  reply  to  an  onslaught 
of  John  Randolph,  which  will  be  narrated  in  another 
chapter.  In  this  statement  he  took  great  pride  and 
some  credit  for  having  achieved  so  much  under  such 
untoward  circumstances,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
was  much  better  off  than  the  ordinary  young  man 
of  his  day,  and  the  real  pinch  of  poverty  was  seldom 
or  never  felt. 

Clay's  notion  of  a  campaign  was  one  run  on  party 
principles,  and  only  as  he  deviated  from  this  did  he 
suffer.  That  he  did  make  so  many  tactical  mistakes 
was  due  to  those  amazing  psychological  phe 
nomena  that  so  often  accompany  an  otherwise  well- 
balanced  mind. 

*3  193 


XV 

LOSING    CANDIDATE    FOR    NOMINATIONS 

BITTER  as  were  the  stings  of  three  defeats  be 
fore  the  people  to  Clay,  his  soul  was  more  deeply 
stirred  by  the  two  occasions  when  he  lost  the 
nomination,  and  when  everything  indicated  that 
he  might  have  been  elected. 

The  first  occasion  was  in  1840  or,  rather,  in  1839, 
for  conventions  were  then  usually  held  in  December, 
so  as  to  give  Congress  a  chance  to  work  along  party 
lines  in  legislation.  In  1836  Clay  was  in  the  Sen 
ate,  fighting  Jackson,  and  was  not  permitted  to  make 
the  race.  Indeed,  there  was  little  chance  for  the 
opposition  at  that  time.  Jackson  had  ridden  down 
all  opposition  and  nominated  Van  Buren,  who  was 
triumphantly  elected,  as  there  was  every  reason  to 
expect  he  would  be,  and  the  Whigs  made  no  party 
nominations  at  all.  Each  State  supported  whom  it 
pleased,  the  votes  going  to  Webster,  White,  Man- 
gum,  and  William  Henry  Harrison,  the  latter  being 
far  in  the  lead.  The  panic  of  1837  came  on,  and 
in  1839  it  was  as  plain  as  anything  political  could 
be  that  Van  Buren  could  not  be  re-elected.  The 
people  were  harassed  with  debt  and  distressed  over 
finances  in  every  way,  and  all  the  blame  was  laid 
on  Van  Buren,  though  it  should  have  been  awarded 
Jackson,  if  any  one,  since  the  legislation  complained 
of  was  his,  and  Van  Buren  simply  fell  heir  to  the  bad 
luck.  This  was  part  of  Jackson's  good  fortune. 
Clay  wanted  the  nomination  badly,  and,  indeed,  it 
seemed  his  due,  as  he  had  been  the  man  to  stand 
up  and  fight  Jackson  on  all  occasions.  It  is  true 

194 


A    CLAY    CARTOON    OF    1844 
"THE  SAME  OLD  COON" 


(In  1840  William  Henry  Harrison  ran  for  President  and  the  Democrats  at  first 
made  fun  of  him  as  a  man  who  lived  in  a  log  cabin  with  a  coonskin  on  the  door. 
The  coon  became  a  Whig  emblem  as  later  the  elephant  became  that  of  the 
Republican  party.  From  the  collection  of  Hon.  Hampton  L.  Carson. ) 


LOSING   CANDIDATE   FOR   NOMINATIONS 

that  in  nearly  every  instance  he  had  been  defeated  ; 
but,  as  he  had  mapped  out  the  campaign  and  borne 
the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day,  it  was  proper  that 
he  should  have  the  recognition  and  the  honors  that 
came  from  such  a  thankless  task  as  fighting  Jackson. 

The  Whigs  were  of  this  opinion.  They  called  a 
convention  at  Harrisburg,  and  nothing  was  ap 
parently  more  certain  than  that  Clay  would  be 
nominated,  especially  when  it  was  found  that  he 
had  secured  a  majority  of  the  delegates. 

It  does  not  seem  to  have  entered  Clay's  mind 
that  the  opposition  of  Harrison  was  very  formidable. 
He  was  a  respectable  old  gentleman  who  had  a 
good  record  as  an  Indian  fighter,  had  been  in 
Congress,  and  held  many  positions  of  importance, 
but  was  now  a  clerk  in  the  Federal  Court  at  Cincin 
nati,  where  he  supported  his  family  on  a  meagre 
salary.  He  stood  for  nothing  in  particular,  was 
colorless,  harmless,  and  therefore,  Clay  thought,  not 
formidable  as  a  rival.  In  this  he  was  mistaken. 
There  were  plenty  of  Clay's  intimate  friends  who 
thought  his  record  of  defeats  already  sufficiently 
long.  They  felt  that  he  was  too  prominent,  too  vul 
nerable,  and  that  his  record  in  the  Senate  was  against 
him  rather  than  in  his  favor,  since  he  had  so  many 
enemies.  In  his  day,  Thurlow  Weed,  of  New  York, 
was  one  of  the  most  adroit  of  politicians,  and  was 
getting  that  control  of  Whig  machinery  which  lasted 
for  so  many  years.  He  was  opposed  to  Clay,  and, 
after  talking  it  over  with  a  lot  of  friends,  was  deputed 
to  go  to  Saratoga,  where  Clay  was  taking  the  waters, 
and  tell  him  to  get  out.  The  thankless  task  was 
performed  with  as  much  delicacy  as  Weed  could 
muster,  which  probably  was  little  ;  but  Clay  was  not 
convinced,  and  remained  in  the  field.  When  the 
delegates  met  at  Harrisburg  there  was  a  clear  ma 
jority  for  Clay,  and  he  was  defeated  only  by  chi- 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

canery.  It  was  objected  by  many  Democrats  that 
two-thirds  of  the  delegates  were  necessary  to  give 
a  nomination,  and  for  years  this  killed  off  the 
most  prominent  candidates.  The  Whigs  made  much 
of  their  majority  rule,  but  at  Harrisburg  it  was  the 
minority  which  ruled,  by  a  curious  adoption  of  the 
unit  rule.  Instead  of  the  delegates  voting  openly 
in  convention,  it  was  adroitly  arranged  that  each 
State  should  ballot  separately  outside  the  con 
vention  and  report  to  a  committee,  which  tabu 
lated  the  result.  In  this  way,  by  manipulation 
and  compelling  each  State  to  vote  as  a  unit, 
Clay  was  defeated  and  Harrison  given  the  nomina 
tion.  No  sooner  was  this  done  than  the  convention 
regretted  it,  for  the  majority  of  the  delegates  were 
amazed  to  find  that  they  had  been  cheated,  and 
many  did  not  really  understand  how  it  had  all  been 
brought  about. 

Then  there  was  a  determination  to  appease  the 
Clay  people  by  nominating  one  of  his  intimate 
friends  for  second  place.  This  was  no  satisfaction, 
and  man  after  man  refused  to  accept  what  seemed 
the  reward  of  treachery.  Finally,  in  despair,  the 
convention  took  up  Tyler,  who,  after  having  had  a 
curious  career  in  politics,  was  now  one  of  Clay's 
close  friends  who  burst  into  tears  at  the  announce 
ment  of  his  defeat  Those  seem  to  have  been 
crocodile  tears,  but  they  were  effective.  Tyler, 
though  scarcely  entitled  to  be  considered  a  Whig, 
was  nominated  and  accepted,  and  the  convention 
adjourned. 

Great  was  Clay's  wrath  when  he  got  the  news. 
Not  only  was  he  disappointed  over  the  result,  but  he 
was  enraged,  because  he  knew  he  had  been  cheated 
out  of  the  nomination.  He  had  been  warned  that 
such  a  plot  was  hatching,  but  could  not  credit  it. 
He  thought  that  Weed  was  mistaken  as  to  the 

196 


LOSING   CANDIDATE   FOR   NOMINATIONS 

opposition,  but  it  turned  out  that,  although  the 
Whigs  of  New  York  really  wanted  Clay,  they  were 
bamboozled  by  Weed  and  others  into  thinking  it 
impossible  he  could  be  elected,  and  so  Clay  lost 
many  delegates  he  should  have  had.  Clay  rose  up 
in  his  wrath,  and  said,  "  My  friends  are  not  worth 
the  powder  and  shot  it  would  take  to  kill  them.  If 
there  were  two  Henry  Clays,  one  of  them  would 
make  the  other  President  of  the  United  States." 
The  last  statement  is  undoubtedly  true.  Uncon 
sciously,  Henry  Clay  gave  the  best  psychological 
analysis  of  his  own  character  that  has  ever  been 
uttered.  Clay  was  a  good  manager  for  others, 
but  a  poor  one  for  himself.  If  there  had  been 
another  Henry  Clay  to  keep  the  original  level-headed, 
history  would  certainly  have  had  eight  years  of  the 
administration  of  Henry  Clay  to  record. 

After  the  first  explosion,  Clay  resumed  his  wonted 
composure.  He  suffered  less  than  some  of  his 
friends,  and  when,  later  in  the  campaign,  it  became 
apparent  that  any  Whig  could  have  been  elected, 
there  were  those  who  worked  against  Clay  who 
bitterly  repented  their  attitude.  Some  knowledge 
of  his  disappointment  coming  to  the  public,  it  was 
reported  that  he  would  not  support  Harrison,  and 
a  delegation  went  to  see  him  on  the  subject.  The 
imputation  seems  to  have  aroused  him  more  than 
his  own  defeat.  He  replied, — 

"Who  is  Henry  Clay,  that  they  should  hesitate 
on  his  account?  I  beg  of  you  to  say  that,  were  it 
the  last  favor  I  had  to  ask  of  them,  they  would 
support  the  ticket." 

Clay  did  support  the  ticket  earnestly,  and  it  was 
elected.  He  was  offered  the  position  of  Secretary 
of  State,  which  he  refused,  and  Webster  accepted  it. 

The  history  of  the  Tyler  administration  is  told 
in  another  place,  and  it  is  necessary  here  only  to 

197 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

pass  on  to  his  last  defeat  for  the  nomination  in 
1848.  Clay's  position  during  the  Mexican  War  was 
a  hard  one  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  Annexation 
had  come,  and  he  was  to  blame  in  so  far  as  he  had 
coquetted  with  the  subject  and  befogged  the  con 
scientious  people  of  the  North,  who  alone  were 
moved  by  what  he  said,  and  who  would  have  been 
for  him  if  he  had  kept  his  mouth  shut.  As  a  patriot, 
he  could  not,  of  course,  do  otherwise  than  support 
the  war  after  it  was  started,  to  the  extent  that  he 
wanted  to  see  the  American  arms  prevail.  His  own 
son,  Henry  Clay,  Jr.,  who  seemed  most  likely  of 
all  to  follow  in  his  steps,  fell  at  Buena  Vista,  and 
from  that  hour  Clay  was  a  changed  man.  Death 
had  been  busy  in  his  family,  but  this  was  the  hardest 
blow  of  all.  It  is  the  general  testimony  that,  had  the 
son  lived,  he  might  have  rivalled  the  father,  such 
were  his  attainments  and  such  his  opportunities. 

The  time  came  when  it  was  necessary  for  Clay  to 
express  his  views  on  the  war,  as  he  was  lending  a 
willing  ear  to  demands  that  he  again  be  a  candidate. 
He  made  an  opportunity  of  his  own.  On  November 
13,  1847,  he  made  an  address  to  his  constituents  at 
Lexington,  commonly  known  in  political  literature 
as  his  Lexington  speech,  but  locally  always  referred 
to  as  his  market-house  speech,  because  it  was  de 
livered  in  an  old  market-house,  which  was  crowded 
to  the  walls,  while  thousands  surrounded  the  building 
outside  and  heard  his  words  through  open  windows. 
It  was  the  last  of  his  great  speeches  to  his  constit 
uents,  and  at  seventy-one  the  fire  was  not  dimmed 
nor  his  ardor  abated.  There  are  still  living  in  Lex 
ington  (1904)  many  men  who  remember  that  speech, 
and  all  view  it  as  one  of  the  great  incidents  in  their 
lives.  As  printed,  the  speech  seems  to  be  much 
shorter  than  when  spoken,  for  it  is  said  to  have 
consumed  several  hours  in  delivery,  and  many  things 

198 


LOSING   CANDIDATE    FOR   NOMINATIONS 

which  were  of  a  purely  local  nature  were  omitted 
when  it  was  prepared  for  publication.  The  market- 
house  was  thronged  with  the  best  blood  of  Kentucky, 
and  when  the  old  man  came  onto  the  improvised 
platform,  a  roar  of  applause  arose  which  lasted  for 
many  minutes.  When  he  began,  it  was  in  a  low 
tone  of  voice,  and  he  was  hardly  in  condition,  seeing 
that  a  few  days  before  he  had  made  a  three-hours' 
argument  in  court.  Those  who  remember  the 
occasion  say  that  his  voice  was  pitched  in  a  lower 
key  than  usual  during  most  of  the  speech,  but  that 
it  was  heard  with  distinctness  at  the  very  outskirts 
of  the  crowd.  The  power  which  he  possessed  of 
making  his  voice  heard  is  said  to  have  been  so 
exceptional  that  in  the  Senate  gallery  visitors  could 
hear  Clay  whisper  to  a  colleague  when  Benton  was 
roaring  one  of  his  wild  buffalo  speeches. 

At  the  market-house  Clay  spoke  for  a  time  with 
calmness  and  slower  than  usual,  but  as  he  warmed 
up  to  his  subject  all  the  Promethean  fire  of  youth 
appeared.  "  I  stood  at  the  very  back  of  the  mar 
ket-house,"  says  one  who  heard  him,  "and  I  never 
missed  a  word  of  that  speech.  When  he  got  about 
half-way  through  I  could  see  his  visage  become 
livid,  his  tall,  graceful  form  swayed  with  the  supple 
ness  of  youth,  and  in  a  short  time  his  eyes  burned 
like  balls  of  fire.  I  have  never  heard  such  a  speech, 
cannot  imagine  that  any  other  man  ever  could  have 
made  one.  His  lips  seemed  touched  as  with  a  coal 
of  fire  from  the  altar,  and  those  eyes  of  his  seemed 
to  me  like  burning  suns.  It  was  weeks  before  I 
could  get  away  from  the  inspiration  of  that  occa 
sion,  and  to-day  I  can  remember  it  as  if  it  occurred 
yesterday." 

This  speech  was  an  arraignment  of  Polk  for  bring 
ing  on  the  war  by  his  despatch  of  Taylor  to  the  Rio 
Grande  in  defiance  of  right,  and  for  the  sole  purpose 

199 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

of  provoking  a  combat.  He  denounced  the  admin 
istration  for  its  perfidy  and  unconstitutional  acts, 
and  wound  up  with  a  series  of  resolutions,  the  pur 
port  of  which  was  that  the  war  should  be  concluded 
as  soon  as  possible  on  honorable  terms,  that  there 
should  be  no  dismemberment  or  annexation  of 
Mexico,  and  that  "we  disavow  any  wish  or  desire 
on  our  part  to  acquire  any  foreign  territory  what 
ever  for  the  purpose  of  propagating  slavery  or  of 
introducing  slaves  from  the  United  States  into  such 
foreign  territory." 

Here  was  Henry  Clay  at  his  best,  the  true  Henry 
Clay,  whose  voice  was  for  national  honor  and  against 
the  extension  of  slavery.  Had  he  made  such  a 
speech  or  avowed  such  sentiments  without  qualifica 
tion  three  years  before,  nothing  could  have  kept  him 
from  the  Presidency. 

This  Lexington  speech  was  received  with  great 
favor  in  the  North,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  as 
if  Clay  was  again  to  be  the  standard-bearer.  It 
had  taken  some  time  to  rouse  the  old  man  once 
more  to  the  contest,  but,  again  engaged,  he  was 
anxious  to  succeed,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  at 
this  time  he  had  the  slightest  notion  that  he  would 
fail.  One  deficiency  in  Clay's  make-up  was  that  he 
was  ever  more  conscious  of  the  praise  bestowed 
on  him  than  of  the  machinations  of  those  who  op 
posed  him.  He  had  now  passed  the  psalmist's 
allotted  term  of  years,  and  was  reconciled  to  God 
and  man  ;  but  he  was  anxious  for  one  more  effort, 
the  more  so  because  it  was  evident  that  victory  was 
in  the  grasp  of  the  Whig  candidate.  But  as,  a 
generation  before,  he  had  not  surmised  nor  rightly 
estimated  the  rising  star  of  Jackson,  so  now  he  could 
not  believe,  would  not  believe,  that  another  frontier 
general,  a  man  of  even  less  experience  than  Jack 
son,  was  to  be  his  most  formidable  rival.  When  he 

200 


LOSING   CANDIDATE   FOR   NOMINATIONS 

found  that  Taylor's  candidacy  was  not  only  serious, 
but  that  the  latter  insisted  on  remaining  in  the  field 
even  after  Clay  had  announced  himself,  his  wrath 
was  once  more  aroused.  He  did  not  believe  Taylor 
could  win,  and,  indeed,  nothing  could  have  defeated 
Clay  for  the  nomination  except  the  action  of  his 
nearest  and  dearest  friends.  There  were  those  in 
Kentucky  and  elsewhere  who  for  forty  years  had 
stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  Clay,  who  had  sup 
ported  him  in  every  contest  either  for  the  nomina 
tion  or  afterwards,  who  loved  him  as  their  own 
heart's  blood,  but  who  did  not  believe  he  could  be 
elected.  Among  these  was  old  John  J.  Crittenden, 
Clay's  colleague  and  bosom  friend,  who  would  rather 
have  seen  Clay  President  than  any  man  living,  but 
whose  unalterable  conviction  was  that  he  could  not 
be  elected.  So  deep  was  this  feeling  that,  for  the  first 
time  in  history,  Kentucky  refused  to  unanimously 
support  her  favorite  son,  and  in  convention  a 
majority  went  for  Taylor.  This  and  the  action  of 
Ohio  made  Clay's  nomination  at  the  Philadelphia 
convention  impossible,  and  Taylor  was  chosen. 

This  was  the  bitterest  pill  in  Clay's  long  career. 
A  man  who  had  spent  most  of  his  life  in  the  swamps 
of  Florida  or  on  the  frontier  fighting  Indians,  who 
was  only  a  colonel  when  the  war  broke  out ;  a  man 
whose  sole  claim  to  fame  was  that  he  had  won  a 
few  battles  ;  that  the  people  should  prefer  such  a 
man  to  Clay  was  to  him  gall  and  wormwood.  As  it 
turned  out,  Clay  might  have  been  elected  in  any 
event,  due  to  the  Van  Buren  defection  ;  but  this 
knowledge  came  too  late.  Clay  was,  time  and  time 
again,  asked  to  support  Taylor  openly ;  but  this  he 
refused  to  do,  though  voting  for  him.  Among  the 
letters  which  are  preserved  by  the  family  is  one  from 
Taylor  to  Clay,  after  the  election,  written  from  Baton 
Rouge,  November  17,  1848.  There  had  been  some 

201 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

friction  between  the  two  men,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
private  letters  between  the  two  had  been  made  pub 
lic.  Of  course,  Taylor  was  anxious  to  be  on  good 
terms  with  Clay,  and  made  overtures  which  had 
not  resulted  very  happily.  This  letter  is  written 
in  a  bold  hand  and  is  not  strong  on  grammar, 
but  is  a  sturdy  exposition  of  the  feelings  of  "Old 
Rough  and  Ready." 

"Mv  DEAR  SIR  : 

"On  my  return  a  day  or  two  since  after  a  short  absence 
I  found  your  highly  esteemed  letter  of  the  23d  ultimo,  for 
which  accept  my  cordial  thanks  :  the  one  referred  to  written 
by  you  in  May  last  reached  me  by  due  course  of  mail,  and  I 
owe  you  an  apology  for  not  replying  to  it,  which  I  deferred 
doing  from  day  to  day  under  the  expectation  that  certain 
events  would  occur  which  I  wished  to  refer  to  in  my  reply, 
but  which  were  so  long  in  taking  place  as  to  induce  me  to 
give  up  doing  so  altogether  :  said  letter  was  entirely  satisfac 
tory  as  regarded  the  matter  alluded  to  (and  to  put  an  end  to 
the  misrepresentations  growing  out  of  the  same  going  the 
rounds  through  the  newspapers,  I  once  caused  a  short  article 
to  that  effect  to  be  published  in  the  Picayune,  of  New  Orleans, 
which  may  have  met  your  eye)  and  relieved  me  from 
anxiety,  as  I  believed  the  course  pursued  by  certain  indi 
viduals  touching  our  correspondence  was  calculated,  if  not 
intended,  to  bring  about  a  state  of  distrust,  if  not  of  unkind 
feelings  between  you  and  myself  as  well  as  some  of  my 
friends,  which,  had  they  succeeded  in  doing,  would,  so  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  have  been  a  source  of  much  pain  and  mortifi 
cation  to  me. 

"There  certainly  could  be  no  objection  or  impropriety  in 
your  permitting  any  of  your  friends  to  read  any  of  the  letters 
I  wrote  you,  who  ought  not  to  have  made  any  use  of  them 
for  any  purpose  without  your  authority,  as  there  was  an  im 
plied  confidence,  at  least,  which  ought  not  to  have  been 
violated.  It  is  true  I  allowed  a  few  very  confidential  friends 
to  read  yours  written  to  me,  nor  am  I  aware  that  any  use  was 
made  of  them  and  furnished  to  a  member  of  Congress  or 
any  one  else,  although  I  have  no  doubt  you  have  been  in 
formed  I  had  done  so." 

After  referring  to  matters  not  important  here,  he 
continues  : 


LOSING   CANDIDATE   FOR   NOMINATIONS 

' '  I  trust  I  have  many  devoted  personal  friends  who  from 
various  reasons  were  opposed  to  my  reaching  the  office  in 
question  and  took  every  honorable  and  proper  means  in 
their  power  to  prevent  my  success,  and  I  shall,  certainly 
would  never  think  of  censuring  them,  much  less  to  permit  it 
on  my  part  to  interrupt  our  friendly  relations  because  they 
done  [sic]  what  they  thought  right  in  opposing  my  election  to 
an  office  which  they  thought  another  better  qualified  to  fill." 

He  then  declines  with  regret  an  invitation  Clay 
had  given  him  to  visit  Ashland.  This  letter  was  evi 
dently  a  strong  effort  to  conciliate  Clay  and  establish 
friendly  relations.  It  failed,  and  when  Clay  went  to 
the  Senate  for  the  last  time,  it  was  as  a  bitter  factional 
opponent  of  Taylor. 

Even  in  1852,  when  Clay  was  seventy-five  years 
old,  there  were  many  who  desired  him  to  be  a  can 
didate,  and  there  are  those  who  say  that  the  old 
man  at  times  would  brighten  up  and  think  that  he 
might  win,  but  these  must  have  been  only  momentary 
flashes;  for,  when  the  subject  was  broached  to  him  in 
any  way  calling  for  a  public  answer,  his  voice  was 
always  in  the  negative,  though  not  unqualifiedly  so. 
He  did  leave  his  beloved  Ashland  for  the  Senate,  in 
obedience  to  what  he  believed  a  call  of  duty,  but  the 
Presidency  was  lost  to  him  forever. 


203 


XVI 

CLAY    IN    DEFEAT 

NOTHING  shows  the  true  temper  of  a  man  so 
clearly  as  his  conduct  under  misfortune.  Clay  had 
his  share  of  disappointments, — more  of  a  certain  sort 
than  any  man  in  the  country, — and  for  the  most  part 
he  bore  himself  so  nobly  that  he  seemed  to  win  after 
all.  Outside  of  the  Presidency  he  had  only  one  per 
sonal  disappointment, — the  failure  to  be  appointed 
Secretary  of  State  by  Monroe.  He  was  offered 
many  other  honors  which  he  would  not  accept.  In 
his  fights  with  Jackson  and  Tyler  he  came  off  second 
best,  as  a  rule;  but  these  were  over  matters  of  legis 
lation  rather  than  efforts  for  personal  advancement. 

He  took  his  defeat  in  1 824  with  philosophy  and  not 
without  humor.  He  had  figured  out  very  nicely  how 
he  could  succeed,  but  events  would  not  follow  his 
calculations,  so  he  treated  the  result  with  consider 
able  good  humor,  though  not  without  sarcasm. 
When  friends  of  Adams,  Jackson,  and  Crawford 
were  buzzing  around  him,  and  telling  him  what  a 
great  man  he  was,  and  how  sorry  they  were  that  he 
could  not  have  been  in  the  race ;  but  so  long  as  he 
was  out  of  it,  he  ought  to  vote  for  their  man,  Clay 
took  it  in  good  part  for  a  while  and  then  got  a  little 
miffed.  He  undoubtedly  considered  himself  much 
better  qualified  for  the  Presidency  than  any  one  of 
the  candidates,  and  it  was  natural  that  he  should 
have  considered  how  different  things  would  have 
been  had  his  friends  carried  out  their  promises,  or  had 
Crawford  been  induced  to  retire  from  the  field  at  a 
time  when  his  health  broke  down.  When  the  cor- 

204 


CLAY    IN    DEFEAT 

rupt-bargain  story  was  circulated  he  got  angry. 
Choosing  Adams  as  the  "  least  of  two  evils,"  he  ob 
jected  to  objurgations,  and  wrote  a  defence  to  Blair, 
who  was  later  to  become  one  of  his  severest  critics. 
He  considered  the  country  safe  with  Adams,  but  not 
with  Jackson,  making  the  astonishing  statement,  "I 
cannot  believe  that  killing  two  thousand  five  hun 
dred  Englishmen  at  New  Orleans  qualifies  for  the 
various  difficult  and  complicated  duties  of  the 
Presidency." 

This  was  spleen  ;  but  Clay's  animosity  towards 
Jackson  was  founded  on  just  considerations  and 
lasted  through  life.  Clay  could  forgive  anything 
but  an  assault  on  his  honor,  and  Jackson  either  made 
or  believed  the  lie  about  Clay,  and  continued  to 
assert  it  after  its  falsity  had  been  demonstrated  to  the 
world  and  the  chief  conspirators  had  acknowledged 
their  guilt.  The  only  scars  that  the  campaign  of 
1824  left  were  those  due  to  the  corrupt-bargain 
story,  and  these  were  deep  enough. 

The  defeat  in  1832  was  foreseen  by  Clay  at  the 
start,  but  after  the  campaign  was  well  under  way  he 
seemed  to  take  courage.  It  is  very  difficult  for  a 
man  to  believe  in  defeat  when  all  his  friends  are  tell 
ing  him  he  is  going  to  win.  Clay  was  ever  deceived 
by  the  warmth  of  personal  attachment  of  his  inti 
mates.  He  stimulated  them  when  in  his  presence, 
and  they  were  so  conscious  of  his  superior  merits 
that  they  could  not  believe  he  could  fail.  It  was  un 
fortunate  for  him  that  there  were  so  many  cool, 
calculating  men  in  the  opposition  who  had  their 
minds  fixed  on  certain  ends  and  were  not  to  be  car 
ried  away  by  the  intoxication  of  Clay's  presence  or 
even  his  hypnotic  power.  Thus  it  came  about  that 
Clay  seemed  to  think  in  1832  that  he  might  win, 
thought  so  after  most  persons  had  given  up  the  con 
test.  Clay  took  the  matter  philosophically  once 

205 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

more,  and  the  only  record  made  of  his  feelings  on 
the  subject  is  in  a  letter  to  Francis  Brooke,  one  of 
his  most  intimate  friends,  in  which  he  says,  "It 
is  useless  to  dwell  on  the  issue  of  the  Presidential 
election,  respecting  which  we  were  so  greatly  disap 
pointed.  From  whatever  causes  it  proceeded,  it  is 
now  irrevocable." 

That  was  taking  defeat  easy,  and  in  any  event 
there  was  so  much  work  for  Clay  to  do  in  putting 
down  nullification  that  he  would  have  had  little  time 
for  repining,  even  had  he  been  inclined  to  do  so. 

His  first  real  grief  came  when  he  was  defeated  for 
the  nomination  in  1 840,  as  already  narrated.  That 
he  was  justified  in  giving  vent  to  his  anger  is  un 
questioned.  He  had  been  cheated  out  of  the  nom 
ination,  but  took  it  with  composure  after  the  first 
outburst  of  anger.  It  is  common  to  say  that  Clay 
could  have  been  elected  that  year,  and  the  sur 
face  indications  are  that  he  would  have,  but  he  had 
such  a  genius  for  defeat  that  such  an  assumption 
is  unwarranted.  Clay  knew  perfectly  well  that  he 
had  been  defeated  by  his  warm  friends,  and  that 
they  had  opposed  him  because  they  feared  he  could 
not  be  elected.  A  small  man  would  have  broken 
with  his  friends  on  such  a  course  of  action,  but  it 
was  characteristic  of  Clay  that  he  did  not  do  so. 
With  a  magnanimity  seldom  equalled  in  history,  he 
accepted  their  verdict.  This  was  particularly  diffi 
cult,  for  there  have  been  few  prouder  men  than 
Clay,  few  so  high-strung;  and  that  under  all  the  dis 
appointments  of  his  life  he  preserved  his  good 
nature  is  a  striking  testimony  to  the  fundamental 
worth  of  his  character.  No  man  ever  sought  the 
Presidency  so  often,  no  man  ever  wanted  it  so  badly, 
and  no  man  was  ever  so  treated.  His  experiences 
would  have  made  a  pessimist  out  of  any  but  a  big- 
minded,  big-hearted  man.  He  supported  Harrison 

206 


CLAY   IN   DEFEAT 

and  rejoiced  in  his  election.  Had  Old  Tippecanoe 
lived,  it  is  certain  that  Clay  would  have  carried  out 
his  programme  in  every  detail,  all  the  acts  would  have 
been  signed,  and  Clay  would  have  succeeded  in  1 844 
with  as  little  struggle  as  is  possible  in  politics.  Here 
is  where  accident  came  once  more  to  vex  him.  If 
Harrison  had  not  insisted  on  making  a  long  speech 
in  the  open  air  when  it  was  raining  ;  if  he  had  not 
refused  to  take  the  ordinary  precautions  after  he 
had  become  drenched  to  the  skin.  There  are  a  good 
many  ifs  here,  such  as  were  always  getting  in  the  way 
of  Clay's  ambition. 

The  defeat  of  1 844  was  heart-rending.  This  was 
Clay's  best  chance.  He  had  won  his  fight  and  then 
threw  it  away.  Clay  had  remained  at  Ashland  to 
get  the  returns,  which  came  in  slowly  from  the  vari 
ous  States  which  held  elections  at  various  dates. 
When  it  was  found  that  New  York  had  deserted 
him,  the  agony  was  over.  His  family  were  crushed, 
his  friends  almost  frantic  with  rage,  vexation,  and 
grief.  It  was  said  that  for  days  leading  Whigs  could 
not  meet  in  the  cities  of  New  York  and  Phila 
delphia  without  bursting  into  tears.  It  was  not  so 
much  that  they  had  principles  at  stake,  and  that  the 
election  of  Polk  meant  war  with  Mexico,  extension 
of  slavery,  and  a  revision  of  the  tariff;  all  these 
things  were  serious  enough,  but  their  real  grief  was 
that  Clay  had  been  defeated.  As  a  psychological 
phenomenon  this  has  never  had  an  equal  in  this  coun 
try,  and  its  only  approach  was  forty  years  later  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Elaine.  The  curious  part  of  the  affair 
was  that,  as  a  rule,  the  Whigs  were  not  emotional. 
They  were  business  and  professional  men  of  stand 
ing,  and  little  given  to  wearing  their  hearts  on  their 
coat-sleeves.  They  could  have  seen  a  dozen  Harri 
sons,  or  Websters,  or  Claytons  defeated  without 
more  than  a  passing  regret ;  but  that  gallant  Harry 

207 


THE   TRUE   HENRY    CLAY 

of  the  West  should  have  lost  by  such  a  narrow  margin, 
and,  as  they  believed,  by  treachery,  was  to  them  a 
personal  misfortune  that  amounted  to  a  family  be 
reavement. 

No  sooner  was  the  result  known  than  letters  began 
to  pour  in  on  Clay,  telling  him  how  it  all  happened 
and  condolingwith  him.  He  must  have  had  some  com 
fort  out  of  the  personal  expressions  of  regret,  even  if  it 
did  not  affect  the  result  Millard  Fillmore,  who  was 
defeated  for  Governor  of  New  York,  wrote  that  he 
did  not  mind  his  own  failure,  but  he  was  depressed 
that  Clay  had  lost.  Crittenden  could  hardly  com 
mand  his  feelings  enough  to  write,  but  he  insisted 
that  Clay  was  the  only  man  in  the  country  who  was 
not  really  a  loser  by  the  result.  Not  only  private 
letters  came,  but  resolutions  by  all  sorts  of  political 
bodies  were  passed,  asserting  their  grief  and  declaring 
that  the  country  had  suffered  a  calamity  from  which 
it  was  not  soon  to  recover.  Indeed,  one  would 
suppose  that  there  was  not  only  not  a  Whig  in  the 
country  who  was  not  wearing  mourning  and  deter 
mined  to  see  Clay  in  the  Presidency  next  time,  no 
matter  what  happened,  but  there  were  of  the  oppo 
sition  not  a  few  who  were  sorry  they  had  not  sup 
ported  him,  while  it  is  certain  that  many  of  those 
who  voted  for  Birney  repented  too  late  their  persist 
ence  in  adhering  to  an  impossible  candidate,  by 
which  they  elected  Polk.  In  truth,  from  all  that  was 
said  and  done,  from  all  the  lamentations  and  protes 
tations  that  rose  to  high  heaven,  one  would  suppose 
that  the  man  who  would  suggest  any  other  candi 
date  for  1848  would  have  been  anathema.  On  the 
day  before  and  the  day  afterwards  Clay  was  the 
popular  idol,  but  at  the  crucial  time  the  desertions 
were  too  many.  A  clergyman  who  wrote  to  him  at 
this  time  and  suggested  to  him  the  consolations  of 
religion,  received  a  reply  in  which  Clay  said, — 

208 


A    CLAY    CAMPAIGN    BANNER    OF    1844. 

(In  1844  this  form  of  political  advertising  was  popular.  The  design  here 
reproduced  was  used  for  banners  and  colored  lithographs.  "  Justice  "  in  this 
case  referred  to  the  fact  that  Clay  was  the  party  choice  in  1840,  and  had  been 
cheated  out  of  the  nomination.  From  the  collection  of  Hon.  Hampton  L. 
Carson. ) 


CLAY   IN   DEFEAT 

"  I  am  greatly  obliged  by  the  desire  you  manifest  that  I 
should  seek  in  the  resources  of  religion  consolation  for  all  the 
vexations  and  disappointments  of  life.  I  hope  you  will  con 
tinue  your  prayers  for  me,  since  I  trust  I  am  not  altogether 
unworthy  of  them.  I  have  long  been  convinced  of  the  para 
mount  importance  of  the  Christian  religion.  I  have  for  many 
years  fervently  sought  its  blessings.  I  shall  persevere  in 
seeking  them,  and  I  hope  ultimately  to  attain  a  firm  faith  and 
confidence  in  its  promises.  There  is  nothing  for  which  I  feel 
so  anxious.  May  God,  in  His  infinite  mercy,  grant  what  I 
so  ardently  desire." 

The  effectual,  fervent  prayers  of  the  righteous  in 
this  case  availed  much,  for  it  was  not  long  after 
wards  that  he  was  baptized  and  confirmed  in  the 
Episcopal  church.  Not  long  before  this  he  had 
asked  a  friend  for  a  book  which  would  be  of  assist 
ance  in  confirming  him  in  the  faith  he  sought,  and 
he  read  it  with  avidity.  Soon  after  his  defeat  he 
was  sitting  with  some  friends  at  Ashland,  discussing 
the  future  of  the  country,  which  was  anything  but 
pleasant,  seeing  that  war  with  Mexico  was  considered 
inevitable,  when  he  pointed  his  finger  at  the  Bible 
lying  on  the  table  and  said,  "Gentlemen,  I  do  not 
know  anything  but  that  book  which  can  reconcile 
us  to  such  events." 

Soon  after  the  unhappy  news  was  learned  he  was 
walking  the  turnpike  in  front  of  Ashland,  when  a 
woman  who  was  passing  by  on  horseback,  on  see 
ing  him,  burst  into  tears.  Always  sympathetic  in 
distress,  Clay  inquired  the  cause  of  her  grief,  and 
she  replied, — 

"I  have  lost  my  father,  my  husband,  and  my 
children,  and  passed  through  other  painful  trials; 
but  all  of  them  together  have  not  given  me  so  much 
sorrow  as  the  late  disappointment  of  your  friends." 

But  the  most  impressive  and  the  saddest  occasion 
of  all  was  the  visit  of  the  Presidential  Electors  of 
Kentucky  to  Ashland  in  December.  They  had  met 
14  209 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

at  Frankfort  on  the  previous  day  and  cast  their  votes 
for  Clay,  though  they  knew  the  formality  was  use 
less.  They  marched  in  a  body  to  Ashland,  and  Mr. 
Underwood,  their  leader,  made  a  touching  speech 
which  moved  every  one  to  tears.  Clay  was  nearing 
seventy,  and  was,  as  he  called  himself,  "  an  old  stag  ;" 
yet  he  had  several  years  of  usefulness  ahead  of  him. 
He  was  much  affected  by  the  visit,  and  it  was  some 
compensation  to  him  that  his  beloved  Kentucky  had 
cast  her  vote  for  him,  as  she  had  done  in  every  con 
test  in  which  he  had  been  engaged. 

In  a  letter  written  a  few  days  later  he  expressed 
his  regrets,  and  said  it  would  be  affectation  for  him 
to  assume  indifference  to  the  result ;  but  he  main 
tained  that  his  personal  disappointment  was  of  little 
account,  and  the  state  of  the  Union  was  to  be  taken 
into  consideration.  Clay  had  been  very  bitter  during 
the  campaign  over  the  calumnies  which  had  been 
uttered  against  him,  and  on  one  occasion  insisted 
on  making  a  public  speech,  in  which  he  vented  his 
wrath  upon  the  calumniators,  and,  in  scorning  and 
defying  them,  it  is  said  that  the  lightning  seemed  to 
flash  from  his  eyes  ;  but  after  the  election  was  over 
he  seems,  as  usual,  to  have  forgotten  his  enemies. 
To  a  friend  he  writes  that  he  supposes  that  many  of 
the  calumnies  never  reached  his  notice,  and  "I 
wish  to  forget  them  and  their  vile  authors  as  soon  as 
I  can.  I  hope  God  will  forgive  them.  I  do  not 
desire  to  soil  myself  by  any  contact  with  them." 

It  is  certain  that  for  a  time  he  had  no  intention 
of  making  another  race.  His  wife,  who  never  shared 
his  optimism,  was  anxious  that  he  should  not  be  a 
candidate  ;  but,  after  his  friends  had  begun  to  write 
him  beseeching  letters,  after  conventions  and  Legis 
latures  and  public  meetings  had  endorsed  him,  he 
consented  to  become  a  candidate  in  1848,  only  to 
lose  the  nomination  by  the  action  of  the  delegation 

210 


CLAY   IN   DEFEAT 

from  his  own  Kentucky.  We  can  forgive  a  man  of 
seventy-two  a  good  many  things,  and  it  is  necessary 
that  we  look  with  some  charity  on  the  feeling  of 
resentment  which  he  maintained  towards  Crittenden 
until  on  his  death-bed.  He  and  Crittenden  had 
been  the  warmest  friends,  and  when  the  latter 
divided  the  delegation  and  secured  the  nomination 
of  Taylor,  Clay  felt  the  sting  very  keenly.  There 
after  his  relations  with  Crittenden  were  civil,  but  not 
cordial,  and  for  a  time  there  was  a  real  estrange 
ment  ;  but  when  the  old  man  was  on  his  death-bed 
he  sent  for  Crittenden.  In  the  shadow  of  the  grave 
the  reconciliation  was  complete,  and  Clay  urged  his 
sons  to  forget  the  past  and  treat  Crittenden  with 
every  consideration. 

As  to  Taylor,  the  situation  was  somewhat  dif 
ferent.  He  could  not  but  look  on  him  as  a  usurper. 
He  had  known  Taylor  long,  and  had  received  a 
touching  letter  from  him  when  his  son  was  killed  at 
Buena  Vista  ;  but  Clay  not  only  wished  to  be  Presi 
dent  himself,  but  he  had  a  great  fear  of  military 
Presidents.  He  thought  the  country  had  been 
severely  strained  when  Jackson  ruled  for  eight  years, 
and  he  wrote  that  he  believed  the  election  of  Taylor 
would  mean  that  thereafter  only  military  officers 
would  be  available  as  candidates,  and  that  the  re 
public  would  be  in  danger.  It  is  easy  to  see  how 
Clay  could  have  felt  thus  on  the  subject.  He  had 
labored  for  nearly  fifty  years  to  build  up  the  nation 
and  his  party.  Whatever  the  Whig  party  stood  for, 
Clay  mainly  was  entitled  to  the  credit,  and  he  could 
not  believe  the  country  wanted  Taylor,  or  that  it 
ought  to  have  him  if  it  did  want  him.  In  this  he 
was  mistaken.  The  country  wanted  Taylor  and  got 
him,  and  Clay  was  not  mollified  by  this.  For  a 
time  it  seemed  as  if  he  might  get  on  pretty  well 
with  Taylor,  but  it  was  impossible.  Taylor  sent  his 

211 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

son  as  minister  to  Portugal,  and  that  appeased  Clay's 
wrath  somewhat ;  but  they  were  opposed  to  each  other 
over  the  Omnibus  bill,  and  their  relations  soon  be 
came  cold  and  were  not  changed  at  the  time  Taylor 
died. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  Clay  cherished  resentment. 
He  simply  could  not  take  Taylor  on  faith  before 
election  and  he  had  no  confidence  in  his  policy 
afterwards.  He  considered  the  great  party  which 
he  had  erected  was  being  destroyed,  and  in  1852 
he  plainly  saw  defeat  was  at  hand.  Refusing  to  be 
a  candidate  himself,  he  gave  his  voice  in  favor  of 
Fillmore  as  against  Webster  or  General  Scott ;  but 
the  party  had  no  use  for  his  advice,  and  nominated 
Scott,  who  rode  majestically  to  defeat,  and  the  Whig 
party  went  into  liquidation.  By  this  time  Clay  was 
dead,  and  without  him  the  party  had  no  cause  for 
existence. 

Clay's  bearing  in  defeat,  barring  a  natural  exhi 
bition  of  anger  on  occasion,  was  magnificent.  No 
man  was  more  sorely  tried  than  he,  and  none  so 
soon  resumed  composure.  He  discussed  affairs  with 
an  impersonality  that  amazed  his  friends,  who  could 
not  bring  themselves  up  to  his  high  level.  After 
all,  how  vain  are  regrets  over  Clay's  defeats !  The 
Presidency  could  have  brought  him  nothing  but  a 
titular  honor,  and  it  is  quite  easy  to  imagine  that  he 
might  have  made  either  a  failure  as  a  President  or 
his  administration  might  have  been  only  respectable. 
Clay's  forte  was  not  as  an  administrator;  and,  though 
we  can  imagine  he  would  have  had  a  brilliant  Cabi 
net  and  a  policy  of  enlarged  statesmanship,  there 
are  reasons  also  for  thinking  he  might  have  been 
sorely  disappointed.  The  only  regret  is  that  he 
aspired  the  place  so  often.  No  character,  however 
great  or  noble,  can  help  being  marred  by  constant 
defeat.  Had  Clay  never  aspired  the  Presidency,  it 

212 


CLAY   IN   DEFEAT 

is  certain  that  he  would  still  live  in  history,  not  only 
as  one  of  our  greatest  statesmen,  but  probably  with 
out  a  rival.  And,  indeed,  had  he  had  no  ambitions, 
it  is  likely  the  Presidency  would  have  been  thrust 
upon  him,  as  it  was  on  lesser  men.  Clay's  conduct 
in  his  campaigns  has  laid  him  open  to  the  just  charge 
of  vacillation  and  wavering  under  fire.  Though 
there  is  ample  apology  for  his  course,  it  cannot  be 
said  that  it  adorned  an  otherwise  almost  spotless 
career. 


213 


XVII 

THE    AMERICAN    SYSTEM 

CLAY  is  probably  best  known  as  the  "  Father  of 
the  American  System  of  Protection."  This  is  not  as 
it  should  be.  Clay  did  not  originate  the  system  and 
denied  its  parentage.  Though  he  was  undoubtedly 
its  most  prominent  exponent,  there  were  times  when 
he  seemed  to  be,  and  was  virulently  accused  of 
being,  latitudinarian  on  the  subject.  Still,  he  must 
be  accredited  with  most  protective  legislation  of  his 
own  and  later  times,  and  is  entitled  to  the  more 
credit  because  he  was  not  one  who  personally  had 
a  large  interest  in  the  system. 

He  began  his  career  as  an  exponent  of  national 
aid  to  internal  improvements.  In  his  second  frac 
tional  term  in  the  Senate  he  came  out  strongly  as  a 
friend  of  American  industries,  and  later  as  a  believer 
in  the  distribution  of  the  surplus  from  land  sales 
among  the  Sta^ 


three  ideas,  comprised  his  "  American  System,"  and 
not  protection  alone,  as  is  so  commonly  supposed. 
His  notions  of  protection  were  probably  derived 
from  the  fact  that  he  lived  in  a  hemp  country, 
and  that  staple  needed  a  market  in  the  East.  It 
is  not  at  all  surprising  that  the  young  planter  found 
himself  at  the  start  a  moderate  protectionist.  His 
early  training  in  Virginia  had  certainly  given  him  no 
definite  notions  on  the  subject,  and  it  was  only 
when  he  contemplated  the  immense  valley  of  the 
Mississippi,  with  its  potentialities  and  its  far  removal 
from  the  leading  markets,  the  idea  came  to  him  that 
it  was  much  better  to  give  trade  to  the  Western  peo- 

214 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

pie  than  to  those  across  the  Atlantic.  His  views  at 
this  time  (1810)  were  moderate,  well  defined,  but 
not  based  on  any  thorough  examination  of  the  sub 
ject.  There  had  always  been  a  semblance  of  pro 
tection  in  tariff  legislation.  The  second  bill  passed 
by  the  American  Congress  was  one  levying  duties  on 
imports,  and  in  the  title  it  was  expressly  stated  that 
one  of  the  objects,  aside  from  raising  revenue,  was 
the  protection  of  American  manufactures.  In  the 
next  few  years  there  were  many  amendments  ;  the 
protection  idea  grew  steadily,  and  was  finally  mixed 
up  in  the  contest  for  the  permanent  capital  of  the 
country.  Pennsylvania  willingly  surrendered  its  own 
claims  for  additional  protection,  and  the  Potomac 
site  was  thereby  selected. 

All  these  early  measures  were,  however,  moderate, 
so  far  as  the  rate  of  duty  was  concerned.  They  did 
not  produce  enough  revenue,  even  when  increased, 
so  that  an  excise  tax  was  finally  laid.  When  the 
war  of  1812  came  on,  which  was  emphatically 
Henry  Clay's  war,  the  tariff  was  doubled  to  meet 
a  portion  of  the  deficit ;  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
very  little  was  imported,  owing  to  the  blockade  in  the 
latter  portion  of  the  war.  At  the  end  of  the  contest 
it  was  seen  that  there  must  be  a  radical  change  in  our 
whole  financial  and  economic  system.  The  national 
debt  had  enormously  increased,  and  the  revenue 
laws  were  illy  adjusted  to  existing  needs.  Clay 
was  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  took  charge  of  the 
matter  in  energetic  fashion.  He  secured  the  charter 
of  a  new  national  bank,  changing  his  views  as  to  its 
constitutionality  and  deeming  necessity  a  sufficient 
excuse.  The  tariff  law  of  1816  was  largely  his 
work,  and  it  was  the  first  effort  to  place  protection 
on  an  alleged  scientific  basis,  by  which  is  meant 
that  the  exact  measure  of  protection  afforded  was 
as  nearly  as  possible  proportioned  to  the  difference 

215 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

between  the  cost  of  the  imported  goods  and  those 
made  in  this  country.  And  now  developed  a 
curious  situation  which  has  been  commented  on  by 
every  antagonist  of  the  principle  of  protection. 
New  England,  which  was,  perhaps,  the  section  most 
benefited  by  the  new  law,  came  out  strongly  against 
it.  Webster  was  in  the  House  and  fast  making  a 
career.  It  had  so  happened  that  when  the  Embargo 
and  Non-Importation  acts  and  the  war  deprived  New 
England  of  her  chief  industry,  that  of  shipping,  the 
people  had  turned,  with  true  Yankee  enterprise,  to 
making  things  they  could  not  get  otherwise. 

It  was  a  girl  near  Boston  who  made  a  straw  hat 
when  she  could  buy  none,  and  it  was  not  long  until 
Massachusetts  straw  hats  were  to  be  found  all  over 
the  country.  These  were  not  made  so  much  in 
factories  as  in  the  homes  ;  and  when  this  industry 
was  so  profitable,  others  followed  in  quick  succes 
sion,  until  New  England  became  a  congeries  of 
towns,  villages,  and  homes  where  everything  was 
manufactured,  from  a  horseshoe  nail  to  shoes  and 
wool  hats.  Much  of  this  work  was  done  by  girls, 
or  by  the  whole  family  in  the  evenings.  While  the 
Southern  planter  sat  on  his  porch,  drinking  his  mint- 
julep,  smoking  his  tobacco,  and  counting  up  how 
much  his  slaves  had  earned  for  him,  and  spending  it 
in  advance,  the  Yankee  was  hard  at  work,  early  and 
late,  anxious  to  provide  for  his  large  family  and  to 
save  up  something  for  a  rainy  day.  In  fact,  there 
cannot  be  imagined  a  greater  contrast  between  the 
social  and  economic  life  of  two  sections  in  one  coun 
try  than  existed  at  this  time  between  the  North  and 
the  South.  It  is  not  so  remarkable  that  there  were 
constantly  arising  causes  of  friction  between  two 
civilizations  so  divergent  as  that  they  ever  managed 
to  get  along  together  at  all. 

Webster  and  other  New  England  people  were 
216 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

against  the  theory  of  protection  at  the  start  It 
seemed  to  them  that  it  was  native  industry  and  in 
genuity  which  helped  manufacturing,  and  they 
doubted  whether  under  Clay's  system  they  would 
gain  as  much  as  they  would  lose. 

Clay  had  now  developed  his  system  much  more 
broadly  than  in  the  early  days  of  his  career  in  the 
Senate.  While  in  Europe  he  had  made  a  study  of 
economic  conditions,  and  found  the  tariff  walls  ex 
isting  everywhere.  He  looked  not  so  much  to  a 
system  of  reprisals  as  to  one  which  should  build 
up  the  independence  of  the  American  nation.  We 
have  seen  that  he  was  not  entirely  satisfied  with  the 
close  of  the  war  of  1812.  He  would  have  preferred 
to  carry  it  on  for  a  few  more  years,  until  the  country 
had  demonstrated  its  capacity  to  make  itself  respected 
in  the  field.  It  so  happened  that  events  of  which 
Clay  was  ignorant  at  the  time  gave  the  national 
arms  all  the  prestige  they  needed  ;  but,  in  truth,  the 
country  was  still  very  young,  still  dependent  on 
Europe,  and  Clay's  notion  was  to  make  it  as  self- 
supporting  as  possible.  The  tariff  law  of  1 8 1 6  was  a 
moderate  one,  according  to  modern  standards.  The 
maximum  duty  was  thirty-five  per  cent,  being  placed 
on  articles  which  the  United  States  could  supply 
sufficient  for  the  demand.  Goods  which  were  only 
partially  supplied  by  domestic  production,  and 
which  it  was  hoped  to  stimulate,  were  taxed  about 
twenty  per  cent,  and  the  other  articles  were  on  a 
purely  revenue  basis.  It  was  emphatically  a  South 
ern  measure,  Calhoun  being  one  of  its  chief  ex 
ponents. 

The  Federalists,  who  were  a  constantly  declining 
faction  and  confined  largely  to  New  England,  op 
posed  the  measure,  while  the  Republicans,  followers 
of  Jefferson,  supported  it  Calhoun  and  Lowndes, 
along  with  Clay,  fought  for  a  bill  that  was  avowedly 

217 


THE    TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

protective,  and  which  Calhoun  was  later  to  repudiate. 
In  enacting  this  measure,  set  speeches  do  not  seem 
to  have  been  made  so  much  as  a  running  discussion 
on  the  various  items  as  they  were  taken  up.  None 
of  Clay's  speeches  at  the  time  is  reported,  and  his 
efforts  were  probably  confined  largely  to  work  in 
Committee  of  the  Whole,  when  he  was  not  in  the 
chair. 

In  1820  Clay  considered  that  the  existing  tariff 
bill  had  not  been  well  prepared,  that  the  protection 
afforded  had  not  met  expectations,  and  that  as  a 
revenue  producer  it  had  failed.  The  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  recommended  a  new  law,  the  general 
terms  of  which  he  sketched.  Clay  was  now  a  more 
ardent  protectionist  than  ever,  and  made  a  set 
speech  on  the  subject  which  set  forth  his  views  very 
clearly.  He  laid  more  stress  on  the  need  for  inde 
pendence  than  for  actual  protection  to  manufac 
turers  or  higher  wages  to  laborers.  He  said, — 

"  The  truth  is,  and  it  is  vain  to  disguise  it,  that  we  are  a 
sort  of  independent  colonies  of  England, — politically  free, 
commercially  slaves.  Gentlemen  tell  us  of  the  advantage  of 
a  free  exchange  of  the  produce  of  the  world.  But  they  tell 
us  of  what  has  never  existed,  does  not  exist,  and  perhaps 
never  will  exist.  They  invoke  us  to  give  perfect  freedom  on 
our  side,  while  in  the  ports  of  every  other  nation  we  are  met 
with  a  code  of  odious  restrictions,  shutting  out  entirely  a  great 
part  of  our  produce  and  letting  in  only  so  much  as  they  can 
not  possibly  do  without.  At  present  I  will  say  that  I,  too,  am 
a  friend  of  free  trade,  but  it  must  be  a  free  trade  of  perfect 
reciprocity.  If  the  governing  consideration  were  cheapness, 
if  national  independence  were  to  weigh  nothing,  if  honor 
nothing,  why  not  subsidize  foreign  powers  to  defend  us? 
Why  not  hire  Swiss  or  Hessian  mercenaries  to  protect  us  ? 
Why  not  get  our  arms  of  all  kinds,  as  we  do  in  part,  the 
blankets  and  clothing  of  our  soldiers  abroad  ?' ' 

Turning  to  the  labor  side,  he  expressed  gratifica 
tion  at  a  visit  he  had  recently  made  to  New  England, 

218 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

where  he  had  seen  so  many  young  boys  and  girls  at 
work  earning  wages,  for  the  factory  system  was  be 
coming  developed  by  this  time.  He  mentioned  that 
he  had  seen,  in  Waltham,  the  daughter  of  a  State 
Senator  of  Massachusetts  at  work,  something  he 
could  not  have  matched  in  the  whole  South.  He 
said  there  were  too  many  people  out  of  work  in 
the  country ;  and  that  he  was  not  afraid  of  child 
labor — a  subject  which  attracts  much  attention  in 
these  days — is  shown  by  this  remark : 

' '  Can  it  be  doubted  that  if  the  crowds  of  little  mendicant 
boys  and  girls  who  infest  this  edifice,  and  assail  us  every  day, 
at  its  very  thresholds,  as  we  come  in  and  go  out,  begging  for 
a  cent,  were  employed  in  some  manufacturing  establishment, 
it  would  be  better  for  them  and  the  city  ?' ' 

Even  then  there  were  those  who  thought  it  wrong 
to  put  small  children  into  factories,  but  Clay  scouted 
the  idea.  In  that  day  there  were  no  public  schools 
of  any  account,  and  a  great  mass  of  children  were 
raised  in  ignorance  and  became  vicious.  New 
England  once  more  objected  to  the  bill,  at  which 
Clay  could  not  withhold  his  astonishment.  He  de 
clared  that  it  was  poor  policy  for  New  England 
to  complain  of  one  or  two  items  in  the  bill,  whereas 
the  whole  scheme  of  protection  was  so  greatly 
for  the  benefit  of  that  section.  He  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  a  large  amount  of  the  pension 
money  went  to  New  England.  Whether  or  not  this 
was  meant  as  a  thrust  it  is  difficult  to  say.  The 
fact  was  undoubted;  but  the  claim  has  been  set 
up  many  times  that  New  England  had  longer 
muster-rolls  than  her  actual  service  in  the  field  en 
titled  her  to,  and  that  many  of  the  pensions  were 
not  deserved.  This  was  the  sort  of  argument  that 
caused  as  much  sectional  strife  in  that  day  as  fifty 
years  later. 

219 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

All  Clay's  eloquence  could  do  was  to  secure  the 
passage  of  the  bill  by  the  House.  In  the  Senate  it 
met  with  strong  opposition,  and  was  lost  by  a  single 
vote,  several  New  England  Senators  opposing  it. 

Clay  was  out  of  Congress  for  two  years,  and  came 
back  to  find  there  was  a  change  in  opinion  on  the 
workings  of  the  existing  tariff.  The  revenue  was 
insufficient  and  New  England  was  losing  her  an 
tipathy.  In  fact,  she  was,  after  this  period,  eager  for 
all  the  benefits  she  could  secure.  Clay  was  again 
Speaker,  and  as  such  he  took  charge  of  the  new 
tariff  bill. 

The  speech  which  he  made  March  30,  31,  1824, 
was  the  most  important  effort  of  the  sort  in  his 
career  up  to  that  time.  He  had  been  trying  his 
best  to  evolve  a  system  which  would  have  a  sci 
entific  basis,  or  one  resembling  it.  It  turned  out 
that  in  this,  as  in  every  other  case  of  the  kind, 
special  interests  had  to  be  provided  for  to  secure 
votes,  and  the  result  was  not  all  that  he  wished, 
though,  apparently,  it  was  a  great  advance  over  the 
law  of  1816.  He  now  made  it  plain  to  New  Eng 
land  and  to  the  Southern  planters  that  the  great 
prosperity  they  had  enjoyed  up  to  the  laying  of  the 
Embargo  was  not  so  much  because  nature  had  been 
kind  as  that  the  Napoleonic  wars  had  been  our 
opportunity,  that  we  controlled  shipping  because  it 
was  neutral,  and  that  our  food  was  needed  to  feed 
armies.  As  a  proof  of  this  he  called  attention  to 
the  extraordinary  shipment  of  foreign  goods  to  this 
country  after  the  close  of  the  war  of  1812,  and  the 
fact  that,  in  spite  of  the  tariff  of  1816,  American 
industries  had  revived  little  or  none  because  the  law 
was  not  adapted  to  the  changed  conditions  of  inter 
national  commerce.  His  great  argument  was  that 
we  must  have  a  home  market  for  our  goods.  "  Agri 
culture,"  he  declared,  "  is  our  greatest  interest  It 

220 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

ought  ever  to  be  predominant.  All  others  should 
bend  to  it" 

This  is  no  longer  the  case,  but  was  strictly  true 
in  his  day.  His  argument  was  to  show  that  the 
farmer  would  be  greatly  benefited  if  those  who  were 
not  engaged  in  agriculture  were  employed  in  some 
productive  industry.  "We  must  then  somewhat 
change  our  course.  We  must  give  a  new  direction 
to  some  portion  of  our  industry." 

He  entered  into  a  rather  extended  argument  to 
show  that  there  was  actually  not  enough  employ 
ment  for  the  existing  population,  and  made  a  great 
point  of  the  fact  that,  for  every  vacancy  in  political 
office,  or  even  at  the  prospect  of  one,  there  were 
hundreds  rushing  to  get  the  place, — a  condition  which 
seems  to  have  been  worse  in  those  days  than  now. 
He  once  stopped  in  the  middle  of  a  very  earnest 
argument  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  door 
keeper  of  the  House  had  been  sick  for  some  time, 
and  there  was  a  tremendous  pressure  to  get  his 
place,  although  he  was  still  alive.  Clay  assured  the 
members  that  he  had  been  to  see  the  old  man, 
and  found  him  convalescent.  Indeed,  he  made 
much  of  the  fact  that  his  first  knowledge  of  his 
illness  was  when  he  was  asked  to  endorse  a  man 
for  his  place.  This  was  a  rather  homely  illustra 
tion,  but  it  seemed  to  fit  the  existing  situation.  More 
avenues  of  labor  were  needed. 

Turning  upon  those  who  had  attacked  the  princi 
ple  of  protection  as  outrageous,  he  said, — 

' '  This  tariff  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  a  sort  of  mon 
ster,  huge  and  deformed, — a  wild  beast,  endowed  with  tre 
mendous  powers  of  destruction,  about  to  be  let  loose  on  the 
people,  if  not  to  devour  them,  at  least  to  consume  their 
substance.  But  let  us  calm  our  passions  and  deliberately 
survey  this  alarming,  this  terrible  being.  The  sole  object  of 
the  tariff  is  to  tax  the  produce  of  foreign  industry  with  the 
view  of  promoting  American  industry.  The  tax  is  exclusively 

221 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

levelled  at  foreign  industry.      That  is  the  avowed  and  the 
direct   purpose   of  the  tariff.     If   it   subjects   any   part   of- 
American  industry  to  burdens,  that  is  an  effect  not  intended, 
but  is  altogether  incidental  and  perfectly  voluntary." 

This  sounds  very  much  like  more  recent  speeches. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  hard  to  find,  in  any  of  the  myriad 
pleas  in  favor  of  protection  that  have  been  made 
since  this  time,  anything  which  varies  much  from  the 
argument  of  Clay.  In  later  times  he  changed  his 
views  on  some  details,  but  his  speech  of  1824  still 
stands  as  one  of  the  beacon-lights  to  those  who 
believe  in  the  principle.  In  closing,  Clay  made  a 
statement  that  sounds  rather  strange  in  these  days 
when  protection  is  claimed  to  be  the  robbery  of  the 
poor  for  the  benefit  of  the  rich.  The  contest  was 
close  and  Clay  was  not  certain  that  the  bill  would 
pass,  and  he  appealed  to  all  who  loved  the  poor  man 
to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  bill,  since  arrayed  against 
it  was  the  most  brilliant  talent  in  the  House. 

"  We  are  opposed  by  the  rich  and  powerful  in  the 
land,  the  executive  government  gives  us,  if  any,  a 
cold  and  equivocal  support,"  while  the  importing 
interests,  British  interests,  and  the  newspaper  press, 
including  the  subsidized  organ  at  the  capital,  were 
all  against  the  bill. 

At  this  time  Clay  was  a  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency,  and  his  bill  was  not  only  for  the  public  at 
large,  but  his  speech  may  be  supposed  to  have  had 
some  element  of  appeal  to  popularity.  It  passed  by 
the  narrow  majority  of  five,  New  England  still  being 
largely  opposed  to  the  measure,  and  for  the  last  time. 
Hereafter,  as  stated,  she  was  ranged  on  the  side  of 
as  high  protective  duties  as  she  could  get  The 
Senate  passed  the  measure  by  a  small  majority,  after 
making  some  amendments,  and  Monroe  signed  the 
bill. 

Clay  lost  the  Presidency,  but  gained  the  Secretary- 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

ship  of  State,  which  took  him  out  of  active  participa 
tion  in  legislation  for  four  years.  He  had  little  to  do 
with  the  tariff  of  1828,  commonly  styled  the  "Tariff 
of  Abominations,"  and  was  not  entirely  in  harmony 
with  its  provisions.  By  this  time  the  manufacturers 
had  a  taste  of  blood,  and  found  the  American  system 
was  much  to  their  liking.  The  rates  were  raised 
very  much  above  those  of  1824,  against  the  protest 
of  the  Southern  representatives,  who  continued  to 
claim  that  they  were  getting  no  benefit  from  the 
tariff,  that  the  goods  they  must  purchase  were  greatly 
enhanced,  while  the  cotton  they  sold  abroad  brought 
no  more,  and,  in  effect,  the  hatred  of  European  na 
tions  to  our  tariff  laws  resulted  in  what  was  practi 
cally  an  export  tax  on  cotton,  which  was  against  the 
Constitution.  These  arguments  availed  nothing,  and 
the  bill  became  a  law. 

The  years  from  1816  to  1824  had  been  conspicu 
ous  for  business  depression.  Clay  afterwards  asserted 
that  they  were  the  worst  in  our  history.  The  seven 
years  succeeding  the  tariff  of  1824  were  those  of  un 
exampled  prosperity.  Clay's  argument  and  that  of 
protectionists  generally  was  that  this  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  adequate  protection  was  for  the  first  time 
injected  into  the  law  of  1824.  This  post  koc, 
propter  hoc  argument  has  been  used  ever  since  by  pro 
tectionists  to  account  for  every  rise  and  fall  of  busi 
ness  activity  and  prosperity,  and  has  been  as  reso 
lutely  denied  by  those  who  object  to  the  system. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  two  bills  produced  a  large 
amount  of  revenue,  more  than  was  needed,  consid 
ering  how  rapidly  the  public  lands  were  being  sold. 
Moroever,  the  facts  were  with  Clay. 

When  Clay  returned  to  the  Senate,  in  1831,  he 
was  a  full-fledged  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and 
proposed  to  put  all  his  notions  of  the  American  sys 
tem  into  one  basket,  as  it  were,  and  force  the  issue 

223 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

on  Jackson.  The  bank  and  land  distribution  belong 
to  other  chapters,  and  we  are  to  consider  here  only 
the  tariff  bill.  Seeing  that  there  must  be  a  change 
in  the  law,  Clay  stood  out  for  protection  on  those 
goods  which  America  could  make  only  when  given 
such  an  advantage,  while  he  favored  low  duties  or 
none  on  all  articles  which  did  not  enter  into  competi 
tion,  except  on  silks,  wines,  and  a  few  such  luxuries, 
and  free  raw  materials  for  the  manufacturer.  Iron 
and  textiles  received  the  greatest  benefits,  and  this 
inflamed  the  Southern  planters  still  more,  as  these 
were  articles  they  must  purchase  to  carry  on  their 
plantations.  Clay  had  visited  the  South,  and  had 
made,  at  Natchez  and  elsewhere,  speeches  in  which 
he  denied  that  the  tariff  had  imposed  any  burdens  on 
the  planters,  while  the  rise  in  the  price  of  their  staple 
was  due,  as  he  claimed,  to  the  fact  that  American 
manufacturers  were  in  the  market  for  a  very  large 
amount  of  cotton,  though  not  diminishing  the  for 
eign  demand.  At  Cincinnati  he  made  a  speech  by 
invitation,  and  an  effort  was  made  to  "  put  him  in 
a  hole,"  as  politicians  would  now  say.  While  most 
of  his  speech  was  against  nullification  and  directly 
aimed  at  South  Carolina,  which  was  already  trying 
to  make  trouble,  the  tariff  underlay  the  whole  dis 
pute,  and  Clay  treated  it  fully. 

It  was  in  this  speech  that  he  made  the  remark  so 
often  quoted  afterwards,  that  he  was  travelling  on 
purely  private  business  "  with  my  friend  Charles  (a 
black  boy,  residing  in  my  family,  for  whom  I  feel 
the  same  sort  of  attachment  that  I  do  for  my  own 
children),  without  sword,  pistol,  or  musket."  This 
was  the  valet  whom  he  had  finally  to  almost  force 
into  freedom  after  he  had  refused  to  accept  the 
boon  for  many  years. 

In  the  Senate  he  once  more  made  an  extended 
speech  on  the  tariff,  which  was  ostensibly  a  measure 

224 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

to  reduce  the  revenue  which  was  entirely  too  large. 
Practically  it  was  a  bid  for  the  Presidency,  a  very 
proper  one  in  line  with  the  custom  of  the  times. 
Clay  was  no  coward.  As  a  statesman  he  never 
hesitated  to  make  any  announcement  which  seemed 
to  him  correct  or  to  endorse  any  legislation  that 
seemed  to  him  proper.  As  a  candidate  he  ap 
peared  to  lose  his  latitude  very  easily.  It  is  almost 
impossible  in  these  days  to  select  Presidential 
candidates  out  of  either  branch  of  Congress.  A 
few  have  been  so  chosen,  but  the  experiment  has 
been  disastrous.  Clay  was  not  only  in  the  Senate, 
but  so  far  as  his  own  party  was  concerned,  he 
was  the  Senate,  and  he  was  ready  for  all  responsi 
bilities. 

Already  Clay  had  noted  the  rising  tide  of  opposi 
tion  in  the  South  ;  had  done  his  best  to  explain  to 
the  men  of  the  cotton  belt  that  they  were  foolish  and 
mistaken  in  supposing  that  there  was  a  devil  in  the 
tariff  that  was  destroying  them.  His  course  was  a 
plain  one,  to  reduce  all  tariffs  that  were  not  protec 
tive  and  adjust  those  which  were,  so  that  the  coun 
try  would  soon  be  independent.  He  made  no 
secrecy  of  his  plan,  and  when  he  found  that  South 
Carolina  was  righting  it  there  was  no  withdrawal. 
He  boldly  attacked  Calhoun  for  retreating  from  his 
former  position  when,  as  in  1816,  he  fought  for  pro 
tection.  Calhoun  was  then  in  the  chair  as  Vice- 
President,  and  interrupted  to  say  that  if  the  gentle 
man  (Mr.  Clay)  wished  to  make  any  remark  as  per 
sonal  to  him  (Calhoun),  he  must  say  that  in  his 
opinion  the  bill  was  unconstitutional. 

This  was  a  rather  unusual  interruption  of  the 
decorum  of  debate,  but  Clay  came  back  at  him 
saying  : 

"  When,  sir,  I  contended  with  you  side  by  side,  and 
with  less  zeal,  perhaps,  than  you  exhibited,  in  1816, 
15  225 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

I  did  not  then  understand  you  to  consider  the  policy 
forbidden  by  the  Constitution." 

Calhoun  looked  down  with  that  mild  expression 
of  which  he  was  capable,  and  spoke  in  the  most  im 
personal  way,  saying  that  the  constitutional  question 
was  not  debated  at  that  time,  and  that  he  had  never 
expressed  an  opinion  contrary  to  what  he  had  just 
uttered.  This  was  mere  sophistry,  and  Clay  instantly 
replied  : 

"It  is  true,  the  question  was  not  debated  in  1816  ; 
and  why  not  ?  Because  it  was  not  debatable  ;  it 
was  then  believed  not  fairly  to  arise.  It  never  was 
made  until  the  discussion  of  the  tariff  of  1824." 

This  was  true.  Indeed,  the  theoiy  that  pro 
tection  is  unconstitutional  is  perhaps  the  greatest 
invention  of  Calhoun's  mind.  It  was  considered 
silly  in  his  day  because  it  had  been  the  universal 
custom  from  time  immemorial,  and  was  used  by 
various  nations,  according  to  circumstances.  Even 
Madison,  who  was  as  strict  a  constitutionalist  as  ever 
lived,  who  may  be  said  to  be  the  father  of  the  Con 
stitution,  was  a  protectionist,  and  in  letters  which  the 
Clay  family  has  preserved  there  are  those  in  which 
Madison  discusses  details  of  the  tariff  of  1824, 
which  he  approves  in  principle,  but  has  some  ques 
tion  as  to  the  desirability  of  stirring  up  too  much 
conflict  between  the  sections. 

It  was  the  great  misfortune  of  Clay  that  he  never 
could  avoid  personalities  in  debate.  At  times  he 
seemed  to  seek  them.  In  this  speech  he  made  an 
assault  upon  the  aged  and  revered  Albert  Gallatin 
which  is  one  of  the  most  indefensible  acts  of  his  life. 
The  two  men  had  known  each  other  for  many  years. 
During  Clay's  two  fractional  terms  in  the  Senate,  as 
a  youth,  Gallatin  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
When  Clay  made  the  war,  without  means  or  men,  it 
was  Gallatin  who  had  the  terrible  task  of  going  to 

226 


THOMAS    H.    CLAY 

(  A  son  of  Henry  Clay,  who  was  with  him  in  his 
last  hours.  The  resemblance  to  his  father  was  very 
marked,  and  an  interesting  comparison  may  be 
made  of  this  picture  with  the  portrait  of  Henry  Clay 
facing  p.  252.  From  a  portrait  in  possession  of  Mr. 
Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Kentucky.) 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

a  poverty-stricken  country,  and  to  sections  which 
were  opposed  to  the  war,  to  raise  the  money.  Galla- 
tin  was  himself  a  foreigner  by  birth,  but  one  of  the 
greatest  of  Americans.  In  finance  he  stands  second 
only  to  that  other  foreigner,  Alexander  Hamilton, 
and  along  with  Robert  Morris.  Gallatin  was  given 
millions  to  raise,  and  all  he  could  finally  do  was  to 
go  to  Stephen  Girard  and  John  Jacob  Astor,  both 
foreigners,  and  get  the  money  absolutely  needed 
to  keep  the  country  from  bankruptcy.  These 
men  pledged  their  private  fortunes,  and  did  carry  the 
country  through  as  best  they  could.  At  a  time  when 
there  were  a  good  many  men  in  the  country,  of 
American  birth,  who  might  have  done  much  for  the 
nation  and  did  not,  it  was  a  foreign  Secretary  who 
had  to  work  through  two  foreigners  to  raise  the 
money  to  prosecute  Clay's  war. 

Moreover,  Gallatin  had  sat  with  Clay  on  the  Com 
mission  at  Ghent,  and  none  knew  better  than  Clay 
how  Gallatin's  suavity  and  good-humor  had  pre 
vented  a  rupture  among  the  American  members. 
Therefore  it  is  with  pain  that  we  read  in  this  speech 
an  attack  on  Gallatin,  who  now,  in  his  old  age,  had 
essayed  to  speak  on  a  subject  concerning  which  he 
had  at  least  a  right  to  talk,  and  concerning  which  he 
had  more  practical  experience  than  any  American 
living.  He  had  raised  his  voice  in  favor  of  a  tariff 
that  should  not  exceed  twenty-five  per  cent,  at  the 
maximum.  Now,  it  is  perfectly  plain  to  economists 
of  this  day  that,  if  there  is  to  be  protection  at  all, 
it  is  not  possible  to  decide  academically  on  a  certain 
percentage.  That  seems  to  be  entirely  outside  the 
possibilities  of  the  case,  since  every  specific  industry 
should  be  protected  according  to  foreign  competi 
tion,  involving  many  elements  which  cannot  be  abso 
lutely  predicted,  and  which  are  supposed  to  be 
worked  out  separately  in  every  bill. 

227 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

Clay  was  wroth  at  Gallatin  for  making  such  a 
proposition,  and  if  he  had  confined  his  remarks  to 
the  absurdity  of  supposing  that  any  fixed  percent 
age  could  be  established,  there  would  have  been 
little  objectionable.  What  he  did  was  to  make  a 
bitter  attack  on  that  gentleman  in  words  which  must 
be  reprinted  here  for  the  reason  that  they  were  to 
be  repudiated  so  soon  : 

' '  And  whom  do  we  find  some  of  the  principal  supporters 
out  of  Congress,  of  this  foreign  system  ?  (free  trade).  Mr. 
President,  there  are  some  foreigners  who  always  remain  ex 
otics,  and  never  become  naturalized  in  our  country  ;  while, 
happily,  there  are  many  others  who  readily  attach  themselves 
to  our  principles  and  our  institutions.  But,  sir,  the  gentleman 
to  whom  I  am  about  to  allude,  although  long  a  resident  of 
this  country,  has  no  feelings,  no  attachments,  no  sympathies, 
no  principles  in  common  with  our  people.  Nearly  fifty  years 
ago  Pennsylvania  took  him  to  her  bosom,  and  warmed,  and 
cherished,  and  honored  him  ;  and  how  does  he  manifest  his 
gratitude  ?  By  aiming  a  vital  blow  at  a  system  endeared  to 
her  by  a  thorough  conviction  that  it  is  indispensable  to  her 
prosperity.  He  has  filled  at  home  and  abroad  some  of  the  high 
est  offices  under  this  government  during  thirty  years,  and  he  is 
still  at  heart  an  alien.  The  authority  of  his  name  has  been  in 
voked,  and  the  labors  of  his  pen,  in  the  form  of  a  memorial  to 
Congress,  have  been  engaged  to  overthrow  the  American  sys 
tem  and  to  substitute  the  foreign.  Go  home  to  your  native 
Europe  and  there  inculcate  upon  her  sovereigns  your  Uto 
pian  doctrines  of  free  trade,  and  when  you  have  prevailed 
upon  them  to  unseal  their  ports  and  freely  admit  the  produce 
of  Pennsylvania  and  other  States,  come  back,  and  we  shall 
be  prepared  to  become  converts  and  to  accept  your  faith." 

This  was  bitter  and  it  was  bad.  It  did  no  credit 
to  Clay,  because  it  was  a  species  of  demagogy  to 
which  he  seldom  stooped,  and  never  without  lower 
ing  himself  and  injuring  his  own  cause.  It  may  be 
that  Gallatin  was  wrong  in  his  theories,  but  to  attack 
him  because  of  his  foreign  birth  was  absurd,  since  he 
was  a  better  protectionist  than  most  of  the  Ameri- 

228 


THE    AMERICAN    SYSTEM 

cans, — much  better  than  Clay  was  the  year  follow 
ing.  This  is  simply  an  example  of  that  tempera 
ment  which  was  so  volatile,  so  prone  to  run  riot,  and 
so  certain  to  injure  only  its  owner. 

Aside  from  its  personalities,  this  speech,  which 
lasted  several  days,  was  an  excellent  exposition  of 
the  protective  system,  in  many  respects  an  advance 
on  his  speeches  of  1824.  Clay  was  pleading  for  a 
principle  which  he  claimed  to  be  fundamental,  and 
he  insisted  that  it  was  only  possible  according  to  the 
plan  which  he  had  mapped  out.  In  Clay's  view,  we 
must  become  more  and  more  independent,  and  any 
return  to  the  old  system  was  simply  playing  into 
the  hands  of  the  foreigner,  and  hence  the  terrors  of 
his  wrath  which  were  sent  down  upon  the  devoted 
head  of  the  mild  and  patriotic  Gallatin. 

When  the  bill  finally  worked  its  way  through  both 
Houses  and  was  brought  to  Jackson,  that  astute 
President  was  for  a  time  in  a  quandary.  The  bill 
reached  him  almost  exactly  as  the  bill  to  recharter 
the  National  Bank,  and  he  knew  that  Clay  had 
staked  his  political  fortunes  on  these  two  measures. 
Clay  imagined  in  his  heart  that  if  Jackson  vetoed 
either  of  the  bills,  it  would  be  that  which  dealt  with 
the  tariff.  It  did  not  seem  possible  that  he  could  veto 
both,  and  if  any  was  to  fall,  it  certainly  would  not 
be  the  bank  bill,  which  had  passed  by  such  large 
majorities  and  which  seemed  so  essential  to  the 
existence  of  the  country.  In  supposing  this  Clay 
counted  wrongly.  Jackson  may  not  have  been  a 
man  of  much  learning, — he  was  undoubtedly  too 
much  of  a  tyrant  in  many  respects, — but  he  had  a 
shrewder  appreciation  of  the  American  people  than 
Clay,  who  boasted  of  coming  up  from  the  soil.  In 
fact,  Jackson  knew  his  own  interests  much  better 
than  Clay  did  his.  As  a  result,  the  tariff  bill  was 
signed  and  the  bank  bill  vetoed.  This  may  have  been 

229 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

on  principle,  as  Jackson  declared.  He  may  really  have 
felt  that  the  bank  was  a  monstrous  corporation  that 
was  devouring  the  substance  of  the  nation,  corrupt 
ing  politics,  and  endangering  the  safety  of  the  re 
public.  At  any  rate,  in  vetoing  the  measure  he  used 
the  same  arguments  and  almost  the  same  language 
which  Clay  had  used  in  1810  when  working  against 
the  recharter  of  Hamilton's  bank  as  unconstitutional, 
and  which  Benton  had  solemnly  repeated  in  the 
Senate.  The  tariff  bill  saved  Pennsylvania  and 
re-elected  Jackson.  Clay  made  a  poor  showing  in 
the  contest,  though  he  would  not  believe  until  late 
that  he  was  irretrievably  beaten.  Here  was  another 
weakness  in  the  composition  of  Clay.  He  was  always 
too  hopeful  at  the  wrong  time,  and  on  the  occasions 
when  despondency  led  him  into  some  course  of 
action  to  mend  matters,  he  always  made  them 
worse. 

Here  ends  really  the  first  chapter  in  the  history 
of  American  protection.  Clay  won  his  bill  and  lost 
his  election,  and  then  found  that  he  had  a  threat  of 
civil  war  staring  him  in  the  face.  After  the  elections, 
when  the  Senators  gathered  in  December,  there 
were  long  faces  on  both  sides  of  the  chamber.  Cal- 
houn  had  resigned  the  Vice-Presidency  and  had 
been  elected  to  the  Senate  to  lead  the  fight  for  nul 
lification.  South  Carolina — that  wilful  daughter  of 
the  republic — had  taken  the  bull  by  the  horns.  She 
had  called  a  State  Convention,  declared  the  tariff 
bills  of  1828  and  1832  null  and  void  and  unenforci- 
ble  after  the  first  of  February  (later  postponed  some 
what),  and  the  Legislature  had  raised  an  army, 
bought  supplies,  and  was  prepared  to  resist  the  col 
lection  of  duties,  though  all  the  time  professing  to  be 
a  loyal  daughter  of  the  nation,  and  declaring  that 
she  was  only  acting  within  her  rights. 

This  was  an  ugly  situation  for  the  country  to 
230 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

face,  the  more  because  South  Carolina  had  been 
talking  about  such  action  for  a  long  time  ;  had  been 
trying  to  get  other  States  to  go  along  with  her,  and 
claimed  that  Jefferson  and  Madison  were  the  authors 
of  the  doctrine  of  nullification.  Clay  was  once 
more  chagrined  by  defeat,  and  though  his  personal 
loss  was  bad  enough,  he  was  much  more  distressed 
at  the  situation  which  confronted  the  nation.  He 
might  have  left  the  whole  matter  to  Jackson,  and 
indeed,  for  a  time,  it  did  seem  as  if  the  administration 
should  handle  the  whole  subject.  In  his  annual 
message  Jackson  referred  only  briefly  to  the  sub 
ject,  and  came  out  soon  after  in  a  proclamation 
which  thrilled  the  country.  It  told  Calhoun  and  the 
nullifiers  that  they  had  not  a  leg  to  stand  on,  that 
the  tariff  laws  would  be  executed  under  any  and  all 
circumstances,  and  invited  the  erring  sister  to  repent 
ere  it  was  too  late.  General  Scott  went  down  to 
look  over  the  fort  at  Charleston,  the  navy  was  placed 
in  readiness,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  civil  war 
would  have  begun  if  there  had  been  no  compromise. 
The  actual  story  of  the  compromise  belongs  in  an 
other  chapter ;  only  that  portion  relating  to  the 
tariff,  need  be  considered  here. 

Protection  was  the  bone  over  which  the  Carolin 
ians  were  contending,  and  the  question  before  Clay 
was,  whether  he  would  let  the  matter  stand  as  it  was 
or  make  a  compromise  that  would  save  some  of  the 
system.  The  Congressional  election  of  1832  indi 
cated  that,  in  spite  of  Jackson's  signing  the  tariff  bill, 
it  was  possible  there  would  be  a  large  majority  for  a 
reduction.  Clay  affected  to  believe  that  there  was  a 
large  majority  for  an  extreme  free- trade  measure, 
which  is  problematical.  He  made  up  his  mind  to 
go  back  on  the  whole  principle  of  protection  as  a 
national  measure  and  look  upon  it  only  as  a  tempo 
rary  expedient.  This  is  one  of  the  most  astounding 

231 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

incidents  in  Clay's  whole  career.  If  the  American 
system  was  so  dear  to  him,  so  vital  and  so  fundamental 
it  would  have  been  much  better,  one  would  suppose, 
to  stand  by  the  guns  and  let  time  bring  the  people 
round  to  the  endorsement  of  the  principle  once  more, 
supposing  that  in  any  case  they  would  ever  give  it 
up.  Clay  was  not  made  of  Roman  material.  He 
shifted  his  ground  at  once.  He  talked  with  some  of 
the  manufacturers  and  held  a  long  consultation  with 
Calhoun,  at  first  through  a  third  party,  for  they  were 
not  on  speaking  terms.  It  was  agreed  that  the  ex 
isting  law  should  be  reduced  to  a  twenty-per-cent. 
basis  in  ten  years  ;  that  all  duties  in  excess  of 
twenty  per  cent,  were  to  be  reduced  ten  per  cent,  of 
such  excess  annually  for  eight  years,  and  then  in  two 
fell  swoops  reduced  to  the  twenty-per-cent.  maxi 
mum  basis.  And  this  was  the  Clay  who  less  than  a 
year  before  had  denounced  Gallatin  as  a  foe  of  his 
country  and  his  adopted  State  because  he  had  recom 
mended  twenty-five  per  cent  as  the  maximum  ! 

When  the  protectionists  heard  of  this,  they  sent  up 
a  wail  of  distress  and  started  for  Washington  as  fast 
as  stage  and  post-chaise  would  carry  them.  It  was 
too  late.  The  compromise  had  been  agreed  upon 
and  they  had  to  go  home  in  disgust,  cheered  as  much 
as  possible  by  Clay's  assurance  that  he  had  saved 
them  from  absolute  ruin,  as  under  other  circumstances 
protection  might  have  been  wiped  out  entirely.  This 
was  poor  consolation,  but  the  worst  was  to  follow 
when  Clay  announced  that  he  thought  ten  years 
quite  enough  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  country  in 
the  way  of  protection,  and  if  by  that  time  the  manu 
facturers  had  not  become  independent  of  foreign 
competition,  it  would  be  time  to  make  inquiry,  but 
doubtless  the  manufacturers  would  then  be  satisfied. 
It  was  specifically  stated  in  the  bill  that  thereafter 
(1842)  the  maximum  duties  were  to  be  twenty  per 

232 


THE   AMERICAN   SYSTEM 

cent.  Now,  of  course,  no  Congress  can  bind  an 
other  in  such  a  case  as  this,  but  it  was  supposed  to 
be  part  of  the  compromise  which  was  to  keep  Cal- 
houn  from  the  gallows,  South  Carolina  in  the  Union, 
and  make  everybody  happy.  As  usual  in  such 
cases,  nobody  was  pleased,  as  the  South  Carolinians 
were  submitted  to  humiliations  which  will  be  dis 
cussed  in  another  chapter. 

Before  ten  years  came  around  Clay  had  repented 
again.  He  saw  how  mistaken  he  had  been  in  1833, 
and  he  had  occasion  many  times  to  regret  what  he 
did  at  that  time  to  pacify  those  who  had  no  intention 
of  being  placated.  When  the  Whig  administration 
came  in  under  Harrison,  protection  was  once  more 
a  tenet  of  the  party,  and  had  Old  Tippecanoe  lived 
a  few  months,  there  would  have  been  no  difficulty 
about  getting  a  new  law.  But  when  Tyler  turned 
apostate,  he  vetoed  the  first  tariff  bill  and  then  a  sec 
ond,  owing  to  the  fact  that  there  was  a  row  over  the 
distribution  of  the  surplus  from  public  land  sales. 
Clay  was  then  party  dictator,  and  would  have  dearly 
loved  one  hour  of  physical  combat  with  Tyler,  the 
man  who  had  been  named  as  Vice-President  because 
he  wept  over  Clay's  defeat  for  first  honors,  the  man 
who  was  now  plotting  the  fall  of  Clay  and  the  ex 
tinction  of  the  Whig  party.  Most  unfortunately, 
Tyler  was  in  position  to  do  mischief.  He  professed 
to  be  a  good  protectionist  after  a  sort,  and  finally 
signed  a  bill  which  contained  a  provision  that  land 
surplus  was  never  to  be  distributed  unless  the  tariff 
fell  below  twenty  per  cent.  This  never  has  hap 
pened  to  this  day,  and  so  one  measure  killed  the 
other,  and  Tyler  was  satisfied.  It  was  a  fairly  good 
protectionist  measure,  but  it  was  short-lived.  After 
its  passage  Clay  made  his  farewell  speech  and  left 
the  Senate,  as  he  supposed,  forever,  and  in  due  time 
the  Walker  tariff  was  passed  ;  but  by  the  time  Clay 

233 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

came  back  to  the  Senate,  in  1850,  the  subject  was 
not  under  discussion.  Clay  made  one  of  his  last 
pleas  in  the  Senate  in  behalf  of  a  proper  tariff  for 
protection,  but  his  words  fell  on  deaf  ears.  Ten 
years  later  his  views  were  carried  out. 

Clay,  as  a  protectionist,  deserves  high  rank  in  the 
history  of  American  economists.  Whether  or  not 
one  believes  in  his  system,  it  is  certain  that  he  was 
its  chief  supporter,  its  chief  defender,  and  he  alone 
of  men  in  Congress  had  the  power  of  investing  such 
an  abstruse  and  difficult  problem  with  an  air  of 
interest.  Clay  could  talk  to  an  enraptured  audience 
on  the  tariff  for  three  hours  at  a  stretch,  while  most 
speakers  would  have  bored  their  hearers  in  fifteen 
minutes.  Clay  had  a  fascinating  way  of  making 
every  one  of  his  auditors  imagine  that  each  word 
spoken  was  directly  addressed  to  him.  If  he  was, 
perhaps,  only  the  father-in-law  of  protection,  he  was 
a  very  good  one  most  of  the  time  ;  though,  as  we 
have  seen,  in  1833  he  reversed  himself -so  completely 
as  to  almost  shake  one's  faith  in  human  nature,  poli 
tically  speaking.  Clay's  logic  had  convinced  every 
one  but  himself.  There  were  plenty  who,  in  1832, 
would  rather  have  seen  the  whole  bill  wiped  out 
than  surrender,  but  they  were  not  in  position  to 
command  votes. 

Every  modern  protectionist  speaker  has  taken  his 
texts  from  Henry  Clay.  The  abstruse  theory  has 
varied  somewhat,  but  not  the  practical  application. 
Many  of  the  protective  rates  are  to-day  far  higher 
than  any  Clay  would  have  dreamed  of  proposing, 
but  that  does  not  affect  the  principle  of  protection 
for  which  he  contended,  and  which  has  been,  to  the 
present  day,  one  of  the  most  bitterly  contested 
policies  in  our  political  history. 


234 


XVIII 

THE     COMPROMISER 
> 

IT  is  very  common  to  speak  of  Clay  as  the  Great 
Pacificator,  though  the  ordinary  person  has  little  idea 
about  his  work  in  compromising.  Indeed,  the  title 
is  not  entirely  correct,  for  not  one  of  the  three  great 
compromises,  so  called,  effected  by  Clay  was  destined 
to  become  permanent.  Clay's  idea  was  that  the 
best  way  to  get  rid  of  a  wound  was  to  poultice  it, 
instead  of  allowing  it  to  kill  or  cure  in  the  ancient 
barbaric  fashion.  His  attitude  of  mind  was  always 
that  of  conciliation  towards  those  who  threatened  the 
republic.  His  belief  in  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union 
was  not  as  deep  as  that  of  Benton.  Clay  wanted  the 
Union  to  survive,  he  knew  the  dangers  which  threat 
ened  it,  and  spent  the  best  years  of  his  life  trying  to 
accomplish  a  condition  of  affairs  so  that  there  could 
be  no  excuse  for  secession.  But  he  was  not  over- 
sanguine,  and  saw  in  the  rising  tide  of  opposition 
to  slavery  not  only  a  menace  to  the  Union,  but  he 
sometimes  seemed  to  assume  that  the  whole  fault  lay 
with  the  abolitionists. 

Thrice  he  effected  compromises  which  seemed  to 
him  necessary  to  keep  the  republic  stable, — in  i£&i, 
1833,  and  1850.  In  each  case  it  was  the  slave  power 
that  was  propitiated,  as  against  the  majority  in  the 
popular  branch  of  Congress,  and  in  each  case  there 
was  much  grumbling  on  both  sides  because  neither 
was  satisfied  with  the  result.  Thomas  Hart  Benton, 
who  was  one  of  the  hardest-headed  men  of  his  times, 
said  that  none  of  them  were  compromises  except  the 
first,  and  that  was  scarcely  entitled  to  the  definition. 

235 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

The  Missouri  Compromise  was  the  first  legislative 
action  in  restraint  of  slavery  that  originated  with  the 
Congress  of  the  Constitution.  Under  the  Confedera 
tion,  the  ordinance  of  1787  had  been  passed,  in 
which  slavery  was  forever  prohibited  in  what  are 
now  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan, 
and  Wisconsin,  and  a  portion  of  Minnesota.  This 
was  largely  the  work  of  Jefferson,  and  a  majority  of 
Southern  men  voted  for  it,  though  afterwards  Web 
ster  insisted  that  it  was  a  Northern  measure,  opposed 
by  the  slave-holders  of  the  South.  That  ordinance 
had  been  reaffirmed  by  the  Congress  of  the  Consti 
tution,  and  when  the  Louisiana  Purchase  was  made, 
there  were  those  who  thought  it  wise  to  extend  the 
line  to  the  West.  As  the  Ohio  River  was  the 
dividing  line,  it  seemed  to  some  members  of  Con 
gress,  when  Missouri  applied  for  admission  as  a  State, 
that,  as  it  was  all  practically  north  of  the  mouth  of 
the  Ohio,  slavery  should  be  prohibited  there. 
There  were  those  who  were  opposed  to  the  extension 
of  slavery  on  moral  grounds  ;  there  were  those  who 
believed  the  institution  bad  economy,  and  certain  to 
bring  on  trouble ;  and  there  were  at  this  time,  per 
haps,  more  in  the  North  who  opposed  the  spread  of 
slavery  simply  because  they  disliked  the  Southern 
statesmen,  and  felt  that  free  soil  ought  to  grow  and 
in  time  control  the  country.  It  was  this  question  of 
balance  or  preponderance  between  slave  and  free 
States  that  brought  unnumbered  woes  upon  the 
American  people. 

The  application  of  Missouri  for  admission  was 
proper  enough.  She  was  rapidly  growing  in  pop 
ulation,  and  steamboats  seemed  likely  to  increase 
her  prosperity  more  than  that  of  any  other  single 
State.  In  1818  she  had  a  large  number  of  slaves, 
and  her  constitution  provided  for  slavery.  It  was 
Tallmadge,  of  New  York,  who  offered  in  the  House 

236 


THE   COMPROMISER 

a  proviso  that  slavery  should  not  be  permitted  in 
the  State,  though  making  some  rather  mild  pro 
visions  for  the  emancipation  of  those  already  held 
to  bondage.  The  House  agreed  to  this  and  the 
Senate  was  contrary-minded,  so  that  no  action 
resulted  at  that  session.  Clay  was  Speaker  of  the 
House  at  the  time,  but  seems  to  have  taken  very 
little  interest  in  the  matter.  When  application  was 
made  a  second  time,  the  result  was  about  the  same. 
The  Senate  thought  no  restriction  should  be  made 
under  the  circumstances,  and  even  so  stern  a  mor 
alist  as  John  Quincy  Adams  felt  there  was  no  reason 
why  all  precedent  should  be  violated  in  this  case. 
It  might  have  been  different  if  slavery  had  not 
already  obtained  such  a  strong  foothold  through 
those  who  went  from  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and 
North  Carolina,  taking  their  bond-servants  with  them. 
Clay  did  not  take  an  active  hand  in  the  matter 
until  it  was  seen  that  there  was  to  be  a  serious  test 
case  made.  The  slave-holding  States  were  exactly 
equal  to  the  free,  and  much  of  the  opposition  from 
the  old  Federalists  was  because  this  would  upset 
that  fine  adjustment,  and  when  they  saw  that  admis 
sion  of  Missouri  seemed  probable,  they  arranged  to 
permit  that  partition  of  Massachusetts  long  contem 
plated  but  never  before  made  possible.  Maine  was 
permitted  to  apply  for  admission  as  an  offset  to 
Missouri.  Still,  the  opposition  to  slavery  extension 
was  so  great  that  it  seems  likely  the  admission  of 
Missouri  would  have  been  postponed  indefinitely,  had 
not  Clay  secured  grand  committees  of  both  Houses  to 
consider  the  matter.  The  Houses  appointed  separate 
committees,  and  it  was  seen  that  there  would  be 
friction  when  Clay  secured  a  joint  session,  in  which 
each  committee  acted  independently  and  still  there 
was  full  conference.  It  was  part  of  his  plan  that 
nothing  should  be  recommended  to  either  House 

237 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

that  did  not  receive  a  majority  vote  in  both  com 
mittees.     For  some  reason,  Clay  never  claimed  much 
credit,  until  late  in  life,  for  this  great  Missouri  Com 
promise,  which  was  one  of  the  most  important  acts 
of  his  career  in  Congress.     He  always  affected  indif 
ference  to  it,  though  it  was  essentially  his  own  work, 
and  could  never  have  been  brought  about  except 
through  his  direct  agency  and  his  unfailing  tact.     The  i 
result  was  the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave  State,  | 
with  the  proviso  that  no  other  slave  States  should  be  \ 
erected  north  of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thirty  minutes 
of  north  latitude,  which  was  the  southern  boundary 
of  Missouri.     This  was  a  real  compromise  because 
it  divided  up  territory  in  fairly  equal  proportions, 
though  the  slavery  advocates  considered  that  they  ; 
had  the  worst  end  of  the  bargain,  as  the  great  North 
west   was   much    more    extensive   than    that   made  \ 
possible    for    slavery.        On    the    other    hand,    the   j 
Northern  people  said  that  a  country  peopled  only  | 
by  the  Indian  and  the  buffalo  was  not  likely  very 
soon   to   become  good  soil   for  any  kind  of  State.  / 
And  there  the  matter  rested. 

In  this  action  Clay  made  a  record  that  was  greater 
than  he  thought  and  more  important  than  he  could 
possibly  have  estimated,  since  here  was  a  case  where 
Congress  legislated  directly  on  slavery,  voting  it  in 
and  out  of  Federal  territory  ;  and  in  this  most  of  the 
Southern  people  joined,  while  the  negative  votes 
were  largely  from  the  North.  This  Missouri  Com 
promise  soon  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  almost  as 
sacred  as  the  Constitution  itself,  and  great  was  the 
indignation,  over  thirty  years  later,  when  it  was 
repealed.  It  is  true  that  later  the  Supreme  Court 
decided  that  slavery  always  had  been  a  national  in 
stitution  and  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  had  been 
void  from  the  beginning,  but  that  only  hastened  the 
opposition,  which  finally  brought  on  civil  war. 

238 


THE   COMPROMISER 

One  result  of  this  Compromise  act  was  that  Ben- 
ton  came  to  the  Senate  and  became  one  of  Clay's 
bitterest  party  foes.  Though  they  were  related 
through  Mrs.  Clay,  and  most  of  the  time  had  warm 
personal  intercourse,  there  were  other  times  when  they 
would  not  speak  to  each  other,  and  in  the  course 
of  debate  they  hurled  invectives  back  and  forth  in 
a  way  that  was  more  forcible  than  dignified.  The 
two  men  were  the  exact  opposites  of  each  other,  and 
both  were  strong  men.  Clay  was  the  brilliant,  dash 
ing  statesman  and  the  accomplished  orator.  Benton 
was  the  heavy,  plodding  man  who  spoke  much  and, 
as  a  rule,  badly,  but  had  better  ideas  of  fundamental 
legislation  than  Clay.  They  were  to  be  opposed 
in  nearly  every  important  piece  of  legislation  for  the 
next  thirty  years,  and  while  Clay  was  to  fight  often 
for  the  Presidency  and  be  disappointed,  Benton  was 
to  achieve  manifold  victories  in  the  Senate  as  the 
right  arm  of  Jackson  and  the  foe  of  the  Triumvirate. 

The  second  great  compromise  came  up  over  the 
tariff  act  of  1832,  the  passage  of  which  has  already 
been  narrated.  It  seemed  to  Webster  and  Benton 
that  the  time  had  come  to  stop  the  South  Carolinian 
murmuring  about  reserved  rights  and  violated  obli 
gations  by  giving  her  a  good  thrashing,  if  necessary. 
Calhoun  had  been  playing  a  strong  game  ever  since 
he  found  that  Jackson  intended  to  succeed  himself. 
It  seems  likely  that,  if  Calhoun  had  been  a  man  of 
more  tact,  he  might  have  made  friends  with  Jackson 
and  become  the  administration  candidate  in  1832. 
Jackson  was  a  feeble  old  man  when  first  elected. 
At  first  he  had  no  intention  of  taking  a  second  term  ; 
but  when  he  found  that  Calhoun  was  plotting  against 
him,  was  talking  nullification  and  other  abstractions, 
he  became  disgusted.  It  was  at  this  moment  that 
some  one  informed  Jackson  that  it  was  Calhoun,  and 
not  Adams,  who,  in  Monroe's  Cabinet,  had  tried  to 

239 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

have  the  doughty  general  censured  for  his  conduct 
in  invading  Florida  and  hanging  two  British  subjects, 
driving  out  the  Spanish,  and  acting  the  buccaneer 
generally.  That  settled  Calhoun,  so  far  as  Jackson 
was  concerned,  and  the  result  was  that  the  South 
Carolinian  went  to  any  length  to  make  it  warm  for 
Jackson.  In  the  Senate  the  Triumvirate  did  much 
to  distress  and  annoy  Jackson,  but  not  to  really 
injure  him.  In  looking  around  for  an  issue,  Calhoun 
picked  up  the  tariff,  and  South  Carolina  held  its 
convention,  passed  its  writ  of  nullification,  and  the 
Legislature  prepared  for  active  resistance  to  the 
collection  of  customs  duties  after  the  first  of  Feb 
ruary,  as  already  narrated.  In  setting  up  in  busi 
ness  for  herself,  the  saucy  Commonwealth  acted  with 
all  the  dignity  and  decorum  of  international  law,  so 
far  as  words  were  concerned,  but  in  action  she  was 
not  willing  for  the  moment  to  go  further  than  make 
threats. 

In  December,  1832,  Clay  came  to  the  Senate 
chastened  by  defeat  and  mentally  disturbed  by  the 
South  Carolina  situation.  He  was  no  believer  in 
nullification  or  secession,  but  he  was  of  a  cast  of 
mind  that  made  him  constantly  take  counsel  of  his 
fears.  It  was  strange  that  he  should  believe  the 
Union  threatened  by  the  action  of  one  of  the  smallest 
of  the  States,  that  he  should  not  have  counselled 
first  obedience  to  a  law  which  he  had  placed  on  the 
statute-books,  and  later  have  discussed  the  question 
of  a  change.  In  sooth,  he  found  that  the  country 
-was  not  for  Clay,  and  he  was  willing  to  do  his  best  to 
make  an  accommodation.  Clay  was  not  a  timid  man 
in  the  sense  that  he  feared  any  man  living,  but  he 
seems  always  to  have  been  willing  to  retreat  from 
any  position  he  had  taken  when  there  was  strenuous 
opposition.  He  really  feared  that  the  South  Caro 
lina  precedent  might  spread  and  there  would  come 

240 


THE   COMPROMISER 

a  division  of  the  republic.  In  consequence,  he  felt 
it  his  duty  to  give  up  something  for  security,  espe 
cially  as  the  elections  had  gone  against  him  in  Con 
gress,  as  well  as  on  the  head  of  the  ticket,  and  there 
was  the  likely  chance  that  the  next  Congress  would 
pass  a  low  tariff  bill.  Whether  or  not  this  would  have 
been  done  is  problematical.  It  may  well  be  as 
sumed  that  Congress  would  have  been  chary  about 
doing  anything  of  the  sort  if  the  leaders  had  held 
out  against  rebellious  South  Carolina.  It  was  no 
time  to  pet  and  beg  that  State,  but  to  explain  to  her 
where  she  stood.  This  was  the  view  of  some  of  the 
leaders  ;  but  Clay,  to  his  subsequent  regret,  con 
cluded  that  the  best  thing  to  do  was  to  compromise. 

Jackson  was  doing  a  good  deal  of  talking.  There 
were  threats  of  trying  Calhoun  and  his  "crowd"  for 
high  treason,  and  hanging  them  on  a  gallows  more 
lofty  than  that  of  Haman.  It  is  not  likely  it  would 
ever  have  come  to  such  a  pitch,  but  we  can  well 
believe  that  Jackson  would  have  done  all  that  man 
could  do,  and  he  might  have  been  more  willing  to 
hang  Calhoun  than  Ambrister,  the  Briton  whom 
he  executed  in  Florida.  Calhoun  was  getting  restive 
because  he  found  none  of  the  Southern  people  was 
coming  to  the  aid  of  his  State.  When  he  started 
his  long  talks  about  the  Constitution  and  his  fine 
spun  theories  of  the  nature  of  government  he  was  re 
ceived  with  disgust.  Most  of  the  legislators  were 
practical  men,  and  they  knew  that  here  was  a  case 
of  having  the  laws  obeyed  or  submitting  to  anarchy. 

"  It's  a  pity  to  see  those  South  Carolinians  hanged  ; 
they  are  such  fine  fellows,"  remarked  Clayton,  of 
Delaware,  to  Clay.  Together  they  resolved  on  a 
compromise.  We  have  seen  how  Clay  had  handled 
the  manufacturers,  but  he  left  much  of  the  details 
of  the  compromise  to  Clayton.  Webster  was  not 
consulted,  because  it  was  early  seen  that  he  was  for 

16  241 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

war  rather  than  any  compromise.  Calhoun  was 
approached  and  a  meeting  with  Clay  arranged,  which 
is  described  as  having  been  very  frosty  and  con 
strained.  /t)ut  of  this  grew  the  compromise  which 
has  been  noted,  by  which  the  tariff  was  to  be  gradu 
ally  reduced  for  eight  years  and  then  in  two  years 
cut  down  to  the  basis  of  1 8 1 6.  After  a  good  deal 
of  consideration,  Calhoun  agreed  to  the  proposition 
because  he  saw  that  a  war  would  be  ridiculous. 
General  Winfield  Scott  was  a  Virginian,  but  he  would 
have  overrun  South  Carolina  on  a  moment's  notice. 
When  the  general  agreement  of  a  compromise  had 
been  made,  it  seemed  rather  ridiculous  on  its  face, 
since  twenty  per  cent,  was  protective  in  theory  and 
somewhat  in  practice,  and  it  was  against  the  whole 
subject  of  protection  that  Calhoun  fought  He  was 
willing  to  concede  something  for  peace,  when  he  was 
brought  up  with  a  round  turn  by  Clay  and  Clayton. 
The  nullifiers  were  told  in  plain  words  that  they  must 
vote  for  the  bill  in  all  its  stages  and  on  final  passage, 
and  that,  in  order  that  there  might  never  be  any 
statement  made  that  protection  was  unconstitutional, 
one  schedule  was  advanced  to  about  sixty  per  cent., 
the  highest  rate  on  textiles  that  had  ever  been 
levied.  At  this  Calhoun  balked.  He  would  not 
object  to  the  passage  of  the  bill,  but  to  compel  him 
to  vote  for  it  was  not  only  gall  and  wormwood,  but 
a  complete  violation  of  his  alleged  principles.  Clay 
ton  acted  as  principal  manager  for  Clay,  and  told 
him  that,  as  the  session  was  getting  late,  there  was  no 
time  to  hesitate.  Indeed,  many  of  those  who  at  first 
favored  the  compromise  now  began  to  wish  that 
it  had  never  been  suggested,  and  rather  hoped  that 
South  Carolina  would  put  her  boasts  to  a  test. 
Calhoun  spent  one  long  night  pacing  the  floor,  and 
finding  there  was  no  chance  to  evade  the  terms  of  the 
compromise,  he  cast  his  vote  for  it  as  he  had  agreed. 

242 


THE   COMPROMISER 

Clay  had  made  up  his  mind,  however,  that  there 
should  be  a  better  law  for  the  collection  of  revenue 
and  protection  of  the  President.  There  was  an 
ancient  statute,  passed  in  the  time  of  the  Fries 
rebellion,  but  it  was  inadequate.  Hand  in  hand 
with  the  reduction  of  the  tariff  bill  went  the  passage 
of  a  bill  that  gave  the  President  all  the  power  he 
could  wish  to  swoop  down  on  offenders  and  put 
a  stop  to  all  grumbling  very  summarily.  This  was 
a  part  of  the  compromise,  and  it  passed  without 
trouble.  The  third  feature  was  one  that  was  very 
dear  to  Clay.  The  national  debt  was  now  practi 
cally  paid,  and  the  sales  of  lands  were  increasing 
at  an  enormous  rate.  The  sop  which  Clay  held  out 
to  the  States  to  vote  for  the  new  tariff  was  the 
passage  of  a  bill  to  divide  this  surplus  among  the 
States.  We  shall  hear  more  of  this  subject  later ; 
but  this  was  a  measure  which  Clay  had  tried  in  vain 
to  have  passed  in  the  previous  session,  as  an  aid  to 
his  canvass.  Now  he  got  it  through,  as  most  of 
the  States  were  either  in  debt  or  anxious  to  embark 
in  a  career  of  building  canals,  railways,  and  other 
public  improvements. 

When  Jackson  got  the  three  bills,  he  signed  the 
first  two.  It  so  happened  that  it  was  within  a  day  or 
two  of  adjournment,  and  he  simply  took  no  action 
on  the  land  bill.  He  dared  not  veto  it,  for  fear  of 
being  overridden,  and  he  would  not  sign  it.  This 
was  the  first  pocket  veto  in  our  history,  and  Clay  was 
so  wroth  that  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  Senate  he 
made  a  long  speech,  asserting  that  the  President  had 
acted  in  an  arbitrary  and  unconstitutional  manner. 
In  truth,  he  was  wrong.  Congress  had  now  just  be 
gun  delaying  important  business  until  the  last  few 
days.  Benton  pointed  out  that  the  Constitution 
evidently  intended  that  the  President  should  have 
ten  days  to  contemplate  any  bill,  and  the  fault 

243 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

was  with  Congress  for  not  acting  more  promptly. 
All  Clay  could  do  was  to  smother  his  wrath. 

He  had  other  reasons  for  feeling  angry.  The 
Calhoim  tribe,  that  had  been  driven  into  submission 
and  had  appeared  very  meek  at  the  time  of  the 
passage  of  the  compromise  acts,  had  gone  home 
and  claimed  a  great  victory,  and  not  without  some 
apparent  reason.  They  had  boasted  that  they  had 
compelled  a  reduction  of  the  tariff  rates  about  one- 
half,  and  that  they  had  forced  Congress  and  the  Presi 
dent  to  retreat  from  their  position.  This  was  specious, 
for  there  was  surrender  on  both  sides  ;  but  the  more 
the  South  Carolinians  pondered  over  the  matter  the 
more  it  seemed  to  them  that  victory  was  entirely 
on  their  side,  and  that  they  really  had  been  too 
lenient.  When  Calhoun  came  back  to  the  Senate 
he  was  arrogant,  and  so  disgusted  Clay  that  he  had 
frequent  occasion  to  say  that  it  was  not  for  this 
that  he  had  been  willing  to  sacrifice  protection,  and 
often  he  lamented  that  he  had  not  let  Calhoun 
and  Jackson  fight  it  out  and  "  the  devil  take  the 
hindmost." 

If  this  can  be  called  a  compromise,  it  bore  bitter 
fruit  It  did  not  satisfy  the  radical  Southern  peo 
ple  a  whit,  rather,  in  time,  did  it  make  them  more 
arrogant,  more  boastful,  and  more  domineering. 
If  there  had  been  no  compromise  in  1833,  there 
probably  would  have  been  none  in  1850.  Jackson 
was  better  able  to  fight  than  some  of  his  successors. 
It  is  certain  that  either  in  1833  or  1850,  at  the 
first  overt  act  of  secession,  a  Southern  President 
and  a  slave-holder  would  have  led  his  troops  to  the 
scene  of  resistance.  That  is  the  sort  of  lesson 
that  we  may  think  now  ought  to  have  been  taught 
early.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  all  things  are  arranged 
by  Providence,  and  that  it  was  part  of  a  plan  to 
let  the  war  come  when  it  did,  but  there  were  a 

244 


THE   COMPROMISER 

good  many  times  during  the  Civil  War  when  it 
seemed  as  if  Providence  were  on  the  other  side, 
and  Clay's  name  was  execrated  for  having  allowed 
the  situation  to  develop  as  it  did.  Conversely,  it  is 
not  at  all  unlikely  that  there  would  have  been  no 
Union  to  save  in  1861,  had  not  Clay  nursed  it  so 
long  and  so  well. 

All  such  speculation  is  useless.  Clay  loved  the 
Union  and  did  his  best  to  save  it,  according  to 
his  own  lights.  Had  he  been  cast  in  a  sterner 
mould,  he  might  have  acted  differently.  We  know, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  he  did  preserve  the  Union 
so  long  as  he  lived,  or  at  least  he  saw  to  it  that 
there  was  no  cause  of  offence,  in  legislation  over 
which  he  had  control,  that  would  lead  any  erring 
sister  to  try  and  set  up  business  on  her  own  account. 

The  so-called  compromises  of  1850  were  im 
properly  named.  They  were  so  vital,  and  came  at 
such  an  extraordinary  time  in  Clay's  career,  that  a 
discussion  of  them  in  detail  is  reserved  for  a  sep 
arate  chapter.  It  can  be  said,  however,  that  in 
this  instance  also  Clay  was  animated  by  the  same 
motives,  that  of  removing  any  cause  of  offence,  and 
of  taking  slavery  and  all  its  works  as  far  out  of 
politics  as  possible.  It  was  a  beloved  theory  of 
some  statesmen  of  that  age  that  there  were  certain 
things  which  were  clearly  in  the  domain  of  politics 
and  others  which  were  not.  It  is  true  that  each  man 
had  a  different  notion  of  what  things  should  be 
taken  out  of  politics,  but  they  all  seemed  to  feel 
that  there  were  some  very  close  to  the  life  of  the 
people  which  were  to  be  ignored.  Clay  said  slavery 
ought  to  have  no  place  in  politics,  and  yet  it  appeared 
at  every  turn,  and  in  time  came  to  dominate  all  po 
litical  thought  and  action.  Clay  recognized  this,  but 
tried  to  get  rid  of  it  by  making  certain  concessions. 
Benton  declared  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  slavery 

245 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

question  to  be  afraid  of,  and  wanted  it  ignored. 
Calhoun  said  that  slavery  was  a  national  institution 
over  which  Congress  had  no  control  whatever, 
though  his  entire  Senatorial  and  administrative  career 
was  exactly  to  the  contrary. 

The  appearance  of  Clay  in  the  Senate  in  1850 
was  at  the  call  of  duty.  It  was  a  sacrifice  of  his 
comfort,  and  practically  of  his  life,  as  he  well  knew. 
It  need  only  be  stated  here  that  the  compromise 
bill  which  Clay  fixed  up  to  heal  the  "  five  bleeding 
wounds  of  the  republic"  was  the  most  extraordinary 
combination  of  irrelevant  and  antipodal  things  that 
was  ever  attempted,  and  the  bill  failed,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  there  was  a  majority,  differently  com 
posed,  for  every  one  of  the  principal  contentions  of 
it,  and  these  were  later  passed  separately.  These 
were  real  bleeding  wounds,  and  they  were  not  to  be 
healed  by  such  thin  plasters.  The  compromises 
suited  no  one,  and  although  both  sides  professed  them 
selves  satisfied,  neither  let  them  alone,  and  in  the  end 
slavery  was  fought  out  in  the  field.  These  compro 
mises  were  wretched  attempts  to  deceive  both  sides. 
In  the  North  and  the  South  there  were,  by  1850, 
plenty  of  men  who  were  willing  to  fight,  and  cared 
for  nothing  so  long  as  they  might  sustain  their 
contentions.  There  was  no  compromise,  simply  a 
brief  cessation  of  hostilities,  and  in  the  end  the  leg 
islation  became  useless. 

Clay's  voice,  which  was  for  conciliation  at  all 
times,  was  lacking  in  that  stern  and  essential  ele 
ment  of  discipline.  Instead  of  demanding,  first, 
obedience,  and  then  conceding  something  for  the 
sake  of  general  amity,  he  bargained  beforehand, 
and  was  himself  obliged  to  admit  that  in  nearly 
every  case  there  was  a  failure  to  keep  the  compact. 
These  efforts  of  Clay  are  more  a  tribute  to  his 
heart  than  his  head.  We  may  believe  that  they 

246 


THE   COMPROMISER 

were,  in  his  view,  essential  to  the  perpetuity  of  the 
republic.  Perhaps  they  were,  though  even  in  his 
own  analysis  they  were  unsatisfactory  and  in  this 
day  they  seem  futile.  All  government  is  based  on 
compromise,  and  if  to  Clay  belongs  the  title  of  the 
Great  Pacificator,  it  is  really  not  so  much  because 
of  the  few  measures  which  he  fathered  at  critical  times, 
but  because  he  was  at  all  times  a  man  whose  lofty 
spirit  and  magnanimous  soul  sought  to  calm  the  pas 
sions  of  the  hour,  and  by  most  solemn  appeals  to  pa 
triotism  to  prevent  the  rise  or  development  of  those 
ideas  which  in  the  end  must  have  proved  destructive. 
Clay's  career  as  a  friend  of  the  Union  is  one 
that  needs  no  demonstration.  Even  in  the  times 
he  lived,  when  his  enemies  were  legion,  and  when 
in  the  House  or  Senate  there  were  those  who 
would  go  to  any  length  to  defeat  him,  he  never 
lacked  friends,  and  was  sought,  not  only  in  pub 
lic,  but  many  times  in  private  to  compose  those 
difficulties  which  others  had  found  irreconcilable. 
There  was  a  winsomeness,  a  womanly  charm  at  such 
times  about  Clay,  which  bore  down  all  opposition. 
His  temperament  was  so  variable  and  his  variety  of 
charm  so  wonderful  that  he  was,  of  all  men  living, 
the  one  best  able  to  act  as  a  physician  to  the 
country,  if  such  was  needed.  Yet  he  was  denied  the 
sole  thing  he  asked  of  the  country  he  served  so 
much.  His  tendency  to  make  peace  with  his  ene 
mies,  to  hesitate  and  modify  his  opinions,  became  in 
time  a  fixed  habit ;  and  such  is  the  constitution  of 
human  nature  that  the  people  preferred  the  arbitrary, 
imperious  Jackson,  or  the  foxy  Buchanan,  or  the 
unknown  Polk  to  one  who  was  the  most  singularly 
endowed  statesman  this  country  has  ever  known,  and 
one  who,  perhaps,  would  never  have  added  to  his 
laurels  had  he  been  granted  that  boon  which  he 
sought  so  often  and  in  vain. 

247 


XIX 

THE     TRIUMVIRATE 

CLAY,  Webster,  and  Calhoun  are  names  so  closely 
linked  together  in  political  history  that  many  persons 
assume  that  there  existed  among  the  members  of  the 
so-called  Triumvirate  the  closest  intimacy.  In  fact, 
this  was  never  the  case.  The  men  were  antago 
nistic  in  temperament,  political  principles,  and  general 
views  of  life.  Clay  was  addicted  to  gay  living,  was 
fond  of  the  society  of  women,  and  never  shone  to 
better  advantage  than  when  surrounded  by  a  bevy  of 
beauties,  young  and  old.  He  could  fascinate  like  a 
Don  Juan,  but  none  of  the  miserable  libels  told  of 
him  has  any  connection  with  his  social  life  in  Wash 
ington.  A  New  England  Senator,  writing  home  in 
1806,  spoke  of  Clay's  exceeding  popularity  in  so 
ciety  and  the  easy  way  in  which  he  took  life,  read 
ing  little,  going  out  much,  and  enjoying  all  the  good 
things  which  came  in  his  path.  This  was  only  less 
than  the  truth. 

Calhoun  was  austere  in  his  habits.  Only  one  man 
exceeded  him  in  rectitude,  and  that  was  Benton, 
who  neither  drank  liquors,  used  tobacco,  nor  gam 
bled  in  an  age  when  these  were  not  esteemed  vices. 
Calhoun,  in  early  life,  was  one  of  the  most  prom 
ising  of  American  statesmen.  He  had  grown  up  in 
a  sort  of  cloister,  and  had  little  touch  with  life  until 
he  came  to  Congress  as  a  young  man  ;  but  he  was 
well  read,  and  intellectually  had  the  greatest  capa 
city  of  any  man  of  his  time,  unless  it  be  his  two 
associates.  In  his  younger  years  he  was  ardent, 
optimistic,  and  ambitious.  He  might,  under  other 

248 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

circumstances,  have  become  one  of  the  most  service 
able  of  statesman,  as  he  was  one  of  the  most  promi 
nent.  But  after  he  had  fought  against  Jackson  and 
lost,  the  iron  entered  his  soul,  and  he  became  nar 
row.  He  withdrew  more  and  more  into  his  shell, 
and  the  only  themes  which  seemed  to  interest  him 
were  cotton  and  slavery.  Disappointed  ambition  left 
him  bitter,  while  it  seemed  to  sweeten  Clay.  Calhoun 
was  a  better  man  than  most  people  in  these  days  are 
apt  to  think.  He  was  dangerous  and  at  times 
malicious,  though  at  heart  professedly  patriotic ;  and 
such  is  the  curious  composition  of  the  human  mind, 
that  it  may  be  said  that  he  really  was  patriotic.  If 
Calhoun  had  been  blessed  with  a  wife  and  children, 
the  history  of  the  country  might  have  been  very 
different. 

Among  the  stories  which  found  their  way  into  the 
newspapers  of  the  day,  there  was  one  to  the  effect  that 
a  sort  of  council  was  held  every  night,  in  which  these 
three  great  men  met  and  discussed  how  they  might 
overthrow  their  enemies.  The  truth  is,  at  these  alleged 
moments,  the  men  were  usually  far  apart  and  prob 
ably  breathing  out  threats  against  the  others.  On 
one  occasion  Clay  is  related  to  have  left  his  cloak 
behind,  and  when  he  found  Calhoun  wearing  it, 
would  not  claim  it,  refused  to  accept  the  substitute, 
and  bought  a  new  one  rather  than  be  contaminated. 
The  story  goes  on  to  say  that  in  a  few  weeks  he  ex 
changed  cloaks  with  Calhoun,  who  was  not  in  the 
least  mollified.  Calhoun  generally  wore  a  shawl. 

Webster  was  in  some  respects  the  ablest  and  in 
others  the  weakest  of  the  three.  Nature  has  seldom 
endowed  a  man  with  such  wealth  of  intellect,  such 
wonderful  powers  of  logic,  such  a  magnificent  voice, 
and  such  a  godlike  presence.  Morally  he  had  his 
defects.  He  drank  heavily,  and  in  later  years  is 
said  to  have  consumed  a  quart  of  brandy  every  day. 

249 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

He  was  careless  in  money  matters,  and  always  in 
debt,  although  his  fees  were  the  greatest  known  in 
our  history  at  the  time.  He  also  was  constantly  de 
voured  by  the  canker-worm  of  ambition.  He  was 
embittered  by  constant  defeat,  and  this  was  the  more 
galling  to  him  because  at  no  time  was  he  ever  in 
measurable  distance  of  the  Presidency  he  so  ardently 
desired.  He  was  conscious  of  his  own  powers,  and 
while  seeking  constantly  that  promotion  which  lesser 
men  achieved,  he  never  obtained  the  hold  on  any 
considerable  share  of  that  confidence  among  the 
people  which  Clay  enjoyed  throughout  the  whole 
country  and  Calhoun  in  a  portion  of  the  South. 

Webster  was  once  asked  why  he  did  not  have 
more  enthusiasm  for  Clay.  He  replied  that  neither 
God  nor  nature  had  given  him  much  sentiment,  but 
that  he  had  always  believed  that  if  Henry  Clay  had 
been  a  woman,  and  he  (Webster)  had  met  her  in 
early  life,  they  would  have  loved,  quarrelled,  and 
married,  and  probably  quarrelled  afterwards ;  but  he 
could  not  conceive  how  he  might,  in  any  case,  have 
regretted  the  event.  Considering  that  the  two  men 
were  for  many  years  bitterly  opposed  to  each  other, 
this  is  a  fine  tribute  to  Clay.  It  seems  certain  that 
in  their  near  relations  to  each  other  the  men  failed 
to  understand  individual  greatness.  It  was  only 
when  separated  that  they  appeared  to  feel  that  there 
was  something  lacking. 

Calhoun  once  said,  "I  don't  like  Clay.  He 
is  a  bad  man,  an  impostor,  a  creator  of  wicked 
schemes.  I  wouldn't  speak  to  him,  but,  by  God  !  I 
love  him." 

This  story,  even  if  apocryphal,  is  very  near  the 
truth. 

These  were  the  three  giant  intellects  who  strove 
against  one  another  for  the  prize  and  always  in  vain. 
To  serve  their  own  purposes,  there  were  times  when 

250 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

they  acted  in  concert,  though  not  on  speaking  terms. 
It  is  one  of  the  pitiable  things  in  history  that  they 
should  have  lacked  that  perfect  balance  which  their 
qualities  would  have  made  possible,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  certain  notable  defects.  There  were  few 
occasions  when  they  could  have  been  overthrown  ; 
and  yet  such  opportunities  did  occur,  as  when,  during 
Jackson's  last  term,  Benton  fought  almost  single- 
handed  against  the  three,  and  managed  to  secure  the 
expunging  of  the  resolution  of  censure  passed  against 
Jackson  in  the  heat  of  passion  growing  out  of  the 
National  Bank  affair. 

Of  the  Triumvirate,  Clay  was  in  most  respects  the 
leader.  He  was  by  far  the  ablest  as  a  constructive 
statesman.  Many  pages  of  statutes  can  be  found 
which  Clay  personally  drew  up,  and  many  more 
which  he  devised  and  originated  for  others  to  father. 
There  is  scarcely  a  line  on  the  statute-books  written 
by  Webster  and  very  few  by  Calhoun.  While  Clay 
was  trying  to  make  his  place  in  history  and  obtain 
the  Presidency  by  securing  the  passage  of  laws 
which  were  of  the  greatest  moment,  Calhoun  was 
endeavoring  to  dominate  the  Union  by  his  views 
upon  the  nature  of  slavery  and  the  paramount  im 
portance  of  cotton.  Most  of  us  live  in  the  region 
of  our  affections  or  passions,  under  the  influence  of 
local  interests.  Webster,  in  his  debates  with  Hayne, 
established  the  Union  in  a  sense  which  had  never 
before  obtained.  If  all  that  he  has  said  or  done 
were  to  perish,  except  his  peroration  in  his  last  reply 
to  Hayne,  his  fame  would  be  imperishable.  That 
short  apostrophe  of  the  Union  was  a  tower  of 
strength  to  the  country  in  the  Civil  War,  and  it  is  sad 
to  note  that  in  his  old  age  he  descended  from  the 
lofty  position  of  his  best  days. 

Clay,  however,  stands  as  the  man  who  achieved 
most,  even  if  not  always  permanent.  The  relations  of 

251 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

the  three  men  began  when  they  were  in  the  House 
in  1816.  They  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  many 
of  the  measures  that  were  passed  to  retrieve  the 
fallen  fortunes  of  the  country  due  to  the  second 
war  with  Great  Britain  ;  yet  it  is  a  curious  fact,  as 
already  related,  that  at  this  time  the  two  Southern 
slave-holders  were  protectionists  and  liberal  construc- 
tionists,  while  Webster  was  a  free-trader,  though  his 
own  State  needed  protection  most  For  some  years 
after  this  their  lines  were  far  apart.  It  was  not  until 
the  Jackson  administration  that  the  alliance  was 
made,  which  was  offensive  rather  than  defensive.  By 
this  time  Calhoun  was  a  disappointed  candidate  for 
the  Presidency ;  Clay  had  been  defeated  once,  but 
had  high  hopes  ;  while  Webster  was  ambitious,  but 
not  yet  a  candidate. 

The  three  men  hated  one  another  in  the  sense  that 
they  were  rivals.  They  were,  perhaps,  the  three 
greatest  intellects  the  country  has  produced,  and  all 
their  rivalries  resulted  only  in  general  disappoint 
ment  They  found  it  satisfactory  to  combine  against 
Jackson,  postponing  individual  fights  until  they  had 
slain  Old  Hickory, — an  event  that  never  occurred. 
They  stood  together  to  prevent  the  legislation  he 
wanted,  to  pass  that  which  they  knew  he  did  not 
relish,  to  defeat  his  nominees,  and  to  make  trouble 
generally.  Unfortunately  for  their  schemes,  there 
never  was  a  man  who  seemed  to  thrive  under  oppo 
sition  as  did  Andrew  Jackson.  That  statesman  has 
many  black  marks  to  his  credit,  yet  such  was  his 
personality,  such  his  shrewdness,  and  such  his  com 
mon  sense  that  he  was  enabled  to  defeat  the  Trium 
virate  in  their  larger  plans. 

There  is  a  story  that  in  1849  or  early  in  1850, 
Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Webster  met  at  dinner  and 
agreed  on  the  compromise  resolutions  which  were 
eventually  enacted  into  legislation.  This  meeting 

252 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

never  took  place.  At  the  time  Clay  and  Calhoun 
were  invalids  and  Webster  was  nursing  his  wrath. 
The  three  were  not  friendly,  except  in  a  defensive 
sense.  That  they  should  politically  agree  would 
have  been  a  miracle,  that  they  could  be  on  friendly 
terms  impossible,  considering  the  past  and  the 
present  and  the  views  which  each  held  for  the 
future. 

It  is  reported  that  Clay  once  said,  "  If  that  d — d 
raven  from  South  Carolina  keeps  quiet,  I  can  do 
something."  And  it  is  said  that  Calhoun,  on  the 
same  occasion,  remarked  that  he  could  send  the 
United  States  to  perdition,  if  it  were  not  for  that 
Kentucky  hell-fiend.  When  asked  whom  he  meant, 
Calhoun  replied  that  he  referred  to  his  best  friend 
and  greatest  enemy, — that  sterling  patriot,  Henry 
Clay.  This  led  some  people  to  think  that  Calhoun 
was  mad. 

These  stories  are  doubtless  apocryphal  for,  when 
Calhoun  died,  Clay  was  one  of  his  warmest  eulogists. 

It  seemed  expedient  to  Clay,  Webster,  and  Cal 
houn  that  Van  Buren  be  put  out  of  politics.  He  had 
resigned  the  Secretaryship  of  State  when  the  com 
bination  of  the  Calhoun  forces  and  the  Peggy  Eaton 
incident  made  it  essential  for  Jackson  to  reconstruct 
his  Cabinet  Jackson  had  defied  all  precedent  and, 
it  seemed  to  the  Triumvirate,  was  guiding  the  ship 
of  state  on  the  rocks.  Up  to  that  time  the  mem 
bers  of  the  Cabinet  of  every  President  had  been 
men  of  the  very  highest  ability  and  of  political 
strength  at  home.  The  Cabinet,  though  not  ex 
pressly  recognized  in  the  Constitution,  had  grown 
into  a  powerful  body  of  advisers,  without  whose 
counsel  the  President  seldom  acted.  It  was  Jack 
son  who  put  a  lot  of  second-rate  men  in  the  Cabi 
net  and  then  made  clerks  of  them,  leaving  the  real 
consultations  to  what  was  known  as  his  "  Kitchen 

253 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Cabinet,"  which  was  composed  of  shrewd  men  with 
out  any  political  or  official  status.  The  result  was 
not  entirely  happy,  but  it  was  not  as  disastrous  as 
Clay  had  expected. 

Van  Buren,  in  his  day,  was  considered  to  be 
shrewd,  and  the  title  of  "The  Little  Magician"  was 
given  him  because  he  managed  to  handle  men  with 
great  facility  and  was  extraordinarily  successful  in 
politics.  He  and  Clay  were  destined  to  be  political 
enemies  for  many  years,  but  there  was  a  strong 
affection  between  them.  Indeed,  there  was  hardly 
a  man  in  Washington  for  whom  Clay  had  so  much 
and  such  continuous  regard.  He  took  no  part  in 
the  Peggy  Eaton  issue,  as  he  considered  it  outside 
his  sphere  ;  but  all  of  the  Triumvirate  were  glad 
when  it  broke  up  the  Cabinet,  regarding  it  as  grist 
for  their  mill.  As  Clay  was  a  candidate  for  the 
succession,  he  viewed  with  complacency  anything 
that  would  weaken  Jackson.  It  is  said  of  Van 
Buren  that  he  told  Peggy,  with  strict  injunctions 
never  to  repeat  it,  that  he  considered  Jackson  the 
greatest  statesman  the  country  had  ever  known. 
Of  course,  this,  as  was  intended,  soon  came  to  Jack 
son's  ears,  who  declared  that  Van  Buren  was  a  man 
after  his  own  heart.  When  Van  Buren  left  the 
Cabinet,  to  make  peace  in  the  political  family, 
Jackson  sent  him  as  minister  to  Great  Britain. 
This  was  during  vacation,  and  when  the  nomination 
was  sent  to  the  Senate,  the  Triumvirate  considered 
that  the  best  way  to  get  rid  of  Jackson  and  Van 
Buren  was  to  withhold  confirmation  of  the  nomina 
tion. 

Up  to  that  time  there  had  nevef  been  a  rejection, 
except  on  grave  grounds,  and,  to  keep  the  record 
clear,  some  very  serious  charges  were  brought 
against  Van  Buren  touching  his  career  as  Secretary 
of  State,  his  attitude  towards  the  spoils  system,  and 

254 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

towards  the  West  Indian  trade  matter, — all  of 
which,  were  of  course,  subterfuges.  They  were, 
in  fact,  part  of  the  game  of  politics  as  played  at 
the  time,  and  they  failed  to  satisfy  the  people. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  Clay  had  a  perfect  right  to 
fight  Jackson  in  the  same  way  in  which  that  old 
soldier  had  made  war  on  him  and  his  followers. 
The  regrettable  part  of  the  warfare  on  Clay's  part 
was  that  it  did  not  succeed. 

During  the  debate  there  arose  the  controversy 
over  the  right  of  the  party  in  power  to  control 
offices,  and  Marcy,  of  New  York,  announced  the 
principle  so  often  erroneously  attributed  to  Jackson, 
that  in  his  State  they  saw  no  objection  to  the  prin 
ciple  in  politics  that  "to  the  victors  belong  the 
spoils."  For  his  own  part,  Clay  was  no  believer  in 
changes  for  political  reasons.  He  rightly  considered 
political  patronage  as  no  party  or  personal  perquisite. 

The  opposition  was  led  by  Benton,  who  had  a 
hard  time  of  it.  The  Triumvirate  controlled  a  good 
majority  of  the  Senate.  The  debate  was  long  and  a 
good  deal  of  spleen  was  shown.  Clay's  most  im 
portant  speech  on  the  subject  was  not  long,  but 
bitter.  One  would  suppose,  after  reading  it,  that 
Van  Buren  was  so  destitute  of  all  principle  that  no 
decent  man  would  associate  with  him.  Indeed,  the 
followers  of  Clay  were  so  strong  in  this  belief  that 
later  they  were  amazed  and  angered  to  find  that 
Clay  was  not  only  on  good  terms  with  Van  Buren, 
but  entertained  him  royally  at  Ashland. 

Early  in  his  second  term  Jackson  removed  the 
deposits  from  the  National  Bank,  discharging  Duane, 
his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  secure  in  Taney  a 
man  who  would  obey  orders.  The  Triumvirate  lay 
in  wait  for  Taney.  He  was  the  man  who  had  made 
the  trouble,  and  they  determined  to  keep  him  out 
of  office.  According  to  the  law,  the  President  was 

255 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

not  obliged  to  send  in  nominations  until  near  the 
end  of  the  session.  When  Taney's  came  in,  it  was 
promptly  rejected  with  the  nominations  of  many 
others.  But  the  rejection  failed  of  its  purpose. 
Chief-Justice  Marshall  died,  and  Taney  was  ap 
pointed  his  successor  and  confirmed. 

In  the  tariff  compromise  Webster  did  not  join 
with  his  two  associates.  When  Harrison  became 
President,  Webster  was  made  Secretary  of  State 
after  Clay  had  declined  the  place  and  had  refused  to 
allow  Webster  to  become  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
When  Tyler  succeeded  and  went  into  apostasy,  all 
of  the  Cabinet  resigned  except  Webster.  He  denied 
that  there  was  any  reason  for  the  conduct  of  his 
associates,  though  if  ever  there  was  a  time  when  a 
man  ought  to  have  had  some  sense  of  the  eternal 
fitness  of  things  in  politics,  this  was  the  occasion. 
Notwithstanding,  Webster  defended  his  position  on 
the  ground  that  he  wanted  to  complete  negotiations 
for  the  Northwestern  boundary.  He  soon  found  it 
desirable  and  necessary,  however,  to  get  out  before 
he  was  kicked  out,  and  he  left  the  Cabinet  a  disap 
pointed  man.  Clay  was  disgusted  with  him,  but 
Webster  cared  very  little  for  that  until  later ;  then 
there  was  a  friendly  feeling  between  the  two  men 
for  some  time.  Clay  left  the  Senate  to  go  home  and 
run  for  the  Presidency,  deeming  it  bad  policy  to  stay 
in  office,  and  the  Triumvirate  did  not  meet  again 
until  1849,  when  they  once  more  joined  in  the  great 
effort  to  compromise  all  the  differences  that  existed 
between  the  two  sections  of  the  country. 

Even  then  the  alliance  was  hollow.  All  were  old 
men  and  none  of  them  without  ambitions.  Webster 
still  hoped  to  be  President,  Clay  was  not  sure  that 
at  seventy-four  he  was  too  old,  while  Calhoun  went 
to  his  grave  before  matters  came  to  a  focus.  Such 
was  the  end  of  the  Triumvirate  which  accomplished 

256 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

much  more  negatively  than  positively.  The  nation 
has  seldom  had  such  servants  as  the  three  who  com 
posed  it,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  their  interests  were  not 
more  closely  allied.  It  is  interesting  to  learn  that 
Randolph  was  responsible  as  much  as  any  man  for 
the  course  which  Calhoun  eventually  took, — a  course 
which  had  many  disastrous  consequences. 

Randolph  stands  out  as  one  of  the  most  remark 
able  characters  in  our  history.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  at  times  he  was  practically  insane.  He  lived  in 
constant  dread  of  insanity,  and  his  best  friends 
believed  that  he  was  often  irresponsible.  He  would 
come  into  the  Senate  spurred  and  booted,  with  his 
dogs  and  whip  in  hand,  and  make  the  most  offensive 
remarks,  apparently  only  to  cause  a  sensation.  He 
and  Clay  came  into  frequent  conflict  while  both 
were  members  of  the  House,  and  finally,  when  stung 
to  the  quick  by  a  remark  which  Randolph  made 
concerning  his  origin,  Clay  made  the  statement : 

' '  Sir,  I  am  growing  old.  I  have  had  some  little  measure  of 
experience  in  public  life,  and  the  result  of  that  experience 
has  brought  me  to  this  conclusion,  that  when  business,  of 
whatever  nature,  is  to  be  transacted  in  a  deliberative  assembly 
or  in  private  life,  courtesy,  forbearance,  and  moderation  are 
best  calculated  to  bring  it  to  a  successful  conclusion.  Sir,  my 
age  admonishes  me  to  abstain  from  involving  myself  in  per 
sonal  difficulties  ;  would  to  God  that  I  could  say  I  am  also 
restrained  by  higher  motives.  I  certainly  never  sought  any  col 
lision  with  the  gentleman  from  Virginia.  My  situation  at  this 
time  is  peculiar,  if  it  be  nothing  else,  and  might,  I  should 
think,  dissuade,  at  least,  a  generous  heart  from  any  wish  to 
draw  me  into  circumstances  of  personal  altercation.  I  have 
experienced  this  magnanimity  from  some  quarters  of  the 
House  ;  but  I  regret,  that  from  others  it  appears  to  have  no 
such  consideration.  The  gentleman  from  Virginia  was  pleased 
to  say,  that  in  one  point,  at  least,  he  coincided  with  me, — in  an 
humble  estimate  of  my  grammatical  and  philological  acquire 
ments.  I  know  my  deficiencies.  I  was  born  to  no  proud 
patrimonial  estate  ;  from  my  father  I  inherited  only  infancy, 
ignorance,  and  indigence.  I  feel  my  defects  ;  but,  so  far  as 

'7  257 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

my  situation  in  early  life  is  concerned,  I  may,  without  pre 
sumption,  say  they  are  more  my  misfortune  than  my  fault." 

At  this  time  Clay  was  only  forty-seven  years  old, 
and  really  on  the  threshold  of  his  greater  career. 
He  had  about  as  good  a  chance  in  life  as  any  one  of 
his  time,  and  his  statement  must  he  taken  rhetori 
cally  rather  than  as  truth  in  detail. 

In  1834  the  Triumvirate  secured  the  passage  of  a 
resolution  of  censure  upon  Jackson  for  removing  the 
deposits  from  the  National  Bank.  This  was  all  that 
it  could  accomplish,  in  view  of  the  damage  already 
done  ;  and  though  in  a  sense  it  was  mere  brutem 
fulmen,  it  caused  Jackson  intense  annoyance,  all  the 
more  because  no  such  action  had  ever  before  been 
taken.  It  seemed  to  give  the  Triumvirate  intense 
joy.  The  resolution  was  not  passed  until  after  a 
great  deal  of  discussion  and  after  the  original  had 
been  greatly  modified.  It  recited  that  Jackson  had 
acted  in  a  way  not  supported  by  the  Constitution 
and  in  a  manner  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  the 
people.  If  the  resolution  was  correct,  Jackson  was  a 
tyrant  and  deserved  impeachment.  The  resolution 
itself  had  no  effect,  but  it  was  a  stain  on  Jack 
son's  record  which  worried  him  more  than  the  fact 
that  he  had  hanged  without  trial  two  British  subjects, 
and  had  invaded  a  foreign  soil  and  driven  out  the 
garrison  of  a  friendly  power.  Benton  at  once  as 
sumed  the  championship  of  Jackson,  and  at  every 
session  introduced  a  resolution  to  expunge  the  reso 
lution  of  censure. 

When  Jackson  received  the  original  resolution  he 
was  highly  indignant,  and  sent  to  the  Senate  a  pro 
test  which  it  refused  to  receive.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  Senate  acted  entirely  within  its  rights  in 
so  doing,  as  it  probably  had  the  right  to  express  an 
opinion  on  any  subject ;  but  in  making  this  war  on 

258 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

Jackson  the  Triumvirate  was  actuated  by  motives 
not  entirely  patriotic.  Calhoun  was  burning  with 
rage  over  his  elimination  from  the  successorship. 
Clay  was  angry  that  he  had  been  defeated  so  de 
cisively  before  the  people,  especially  as  the  campaign 
was  conducted  on  party  lines,  and  his  own  policies 
had  been  reversed.  Webster  had  no  use  for  the 
man  of  iron  who  so  ruthlessly  executed  his  own 
wishes  and  carried  the  country  with  him.  At  this 
time,  indeed,  Clay  and  Calhoun  were  bitter  enemies ; 
Calhoun,  in  his  masterful  way,  was  lording  it  over  Clay, 
telling  every  one  that  there  was  no  compromise,  that 
Clay  had  been  obliged  to  bow  the  knee  to  the  South 
Carolinians,  and  that,  under  other  circumstances,  the 
Palmetto  State  would  have  made  good  her  threat 

To  a  man  of  Clay's  temperament  this  was  mad 
dening.  He  had  gone  to  the  very  limit  in  giving  up 
protection  for  the  sake  of  the  Union,  and  he  had 
actually  forced  Calhoun  to  vote  for  the  compromise. 
For  this  he  had  been  execrated  by  leading  members 
of  his  party,  had  become  estranged  from  Webster, 
and  had  been  rejected  as  the  candidate  of  his  party 
for  the  succession  in  1836.  Clay,  who  was  reluctant 
to  run  in  1832,  seems  to  have  had  a  notion  that  he 
could  beat  Van  Buren  in  1836,  though  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  he  could  have  done  so.  All 
this  time  Benton  was  working  for  a  mutilation  of  the 
records,  as  Clay  called  it,  so  as  to  remove  the  censure 
from  Jackson,  and  in  this  he  displayed  a  persistency 
worthy  of  a  better  cause,  though  in  the  end  it  brought 
success.  The  Jackson  machine  was  in  good  condi 
tion.  Whenever  Benton  found  a  man  whom  Clay  had 
seduced  into  thinking  Jackson  a  monster,  he  began 
work  on  the  State  Legislature  until  it  passed  a  reso 
lution  instructing  the  Senators  to  vote  for  the  ex 
punging  resolution.  In  many  instances  this  was 
accomplished.  In  some  instances  the  Senators 

259 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

resigned  rather  than  comply  with  the  instruction,  the 
right  of  which  was  then  well  recognized,  but  it  has 
since  fallen  into  complete  disuse.  Tyler,  of  Virginia, 
stuck  to  Clay,  and  resigned  rather  than  comply. 
Hugh  L.  White  did  the  same. 

White  was  a  Senator  from  Tennessee,  and  one  of 
the  country's  ablest  men.  He  had  a  constant  aver 
sion  to  public  office,  and  there  was  no  gift  in  the 
possession  of  Tennessee  that  was  not  offered  him, 
and  which  the  people  did  not  think  it  was  an  honor 
to  them  to  have  him  accept.  In  late  years  he 
married  a  buxom  widow  who  had  kept  a  boarding- 
house  at  the  capital  for  years  and  was  anxious  to 
become  mistress  of  the  White  House.  White  was  by 
nature  indolent  or  indifferent  to  ambition,  but  his 
wife  stimulated  him  so  that  he  made  the  race  only 
to  be  disastrously  defeated  and  to  die,  as  many 
believed,  of  chagrin. 

By  the  time  Jackson  was  in  the  last  months  of  his 
campaign,  Benton  could  count  up  a  majority  for  his 
expunging  resolution,  and  in  January,  1837,  ne  col 
lected  a  Spartan  band  that  was  willing  to  stand  by 
him  until  the  end.  Benton,  therefore,  served  notice 
on  Clay  that  there  would  be  no  adjournment  until 
the  resolution  was  passed. 

At  first,  Clay  and  his  two  colleagues  affected  to 
ignore  the  threat ;  but  when  they  saw  a  wagon-load 
of  hams  and  sandwiches,  turkeys,  chickens,  salads, 
and  a  lot  of  wines  going  into  a  committee- room, 
their  hearts  sank  within  them.  Benton  had  mar 
shalled  his  forces  to  good  advantage,  and,  believing 
that  there  was  basis  for  the  threats  against  his  life  by 
rowdies,  he  went  about  with  caution.  His  wife, 
fearing  that  his  days  were  numbered,  sat  with  him 
on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  and  friends  kept  arms  in 
a  convenient  committee-room  to  use  upon  the  gal 
leries,  which  were  supposed  to  be  packed  with  friends 

260 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

of  the  bank  and  the  Triumvirate.  Of  course,  no 
one  in  authority  had  any  connection  with  the  mob 
which  assembled  on  the  first  indication  that  there 
was  to  be  trouble  ;  but,  while  there  was  no  actual 
violence,  there  was  some  disturbance  in  the  galleries, 
and  Benton's  friends  felt  it  necessary  to  form  a  sort 
of  Pretorian  guard  around  him,  while  he  forced  the 
resolution  through. 

Seeing  that  the  resolution  must  pass,  the  members 
of  the  Triumvirate  consoled  themselves  by  putting 
themselves  on  record  for  the  last  time  against  what 
they  considered  a  usurpation  of  the  power  of  the 
Senate  to  undo  what  it  had  once  performed.  Their 
arguments  seem  to  have  had  a  good  deal  more 
spleen  than  logic.  If  there  was  any  reason  why  a 
majority  of  the  Senate  at  one  time  should  use  its 
power  to  censure  a  President,  there  was  obviously 
no  reason  why,  later,  another  Senate  should  not  use 
such  a  method  as  it  chose  to  express  its  confidence 
in  the  Executive.  In  both  cases  the  action  of  the 
Senate  was  undignified,  unnecessary,  and  produc 
tive  of  no  particular  good.  Each  of  the  Triumvirate 
made  an  impassioned  speech  which  showed  the 
anguish  of  despair.  Clay  once  more  seemed  to  feel 
that  the  end  of  the  republic  was  at  hand.  He  ex 
plained  his  views  on  the  subject  of  Jackson's  removal 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  order  to  get  a 
pliant  man,  denounced  Old  Hickory  in  unsparing 
invective,  and  closed  in  this  pessimistic  strain  : 

"  But  why  should  I  detain  the  Senate  or  needlessly  waste 
my  breath  in  fruitless  exertions  ?  The  decree  has  gone  forth. 
It  is  one  of  urgency,  too.  The  deed  is  to  be  done  ;  that  foul 
deed,  like  the  blood-stained  hand  of  the  guilty  Macbeth, 
all  ocean's  water  will  never  wash  out.  Proceed,  then,  to  the 
noble  work  which  lies  before  you,  and,  like  other  skilful  exe 
cutioners,  do  it  quickly.  And  when  you  have  perpetrated  it, 
go  home  to  the  people  and  tell  them  what  glorious  honors 
you  have  achieved  for  our  common  country.  Tell  them  that 

261 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

you  have  extinguished  one  of  the  brightest  and  purest  lights 
that  ever  burned  at  the  altar  of  civil  liberty.  Tell  them  that 
you  have  silenced  one  of  the  noblest  batteries  that  ever  thun 
dered  in  defence  of  the  Constitution,  and  bravely  spiked  the 
cannon.  Tell  them  that,  henceforth,  no  matter  what  daring 
and  outrageous  act  any  President  may  perform,  you  have 
forever  hermetically  sealed  the  mouth  of  the  Senate.  Tell 
them  that  he  may  fearlessly  assume  what  power  he  pleases  ; 
snatch  from  its  lawful  custody  the  public  purse,  command  the 
military  detachment  to  enter  the  halls  of  the  Capitol,  overawe 
Congress,  trample  down  the  Constitution,  and  raze  every 
bulwark  of  freedom,  but  that  the  Senate  must  stand  mute  in 
silent  submission  and  not  dare  to  raise  its  opposing  voice. 
That  it  must  wait  until  the  House  of  Representatives,  humbled 
and  subdued  like  itself,  and  a  majority  of  it  composed  of  the 
partisans  of  the  President,  shall  prefer  articles  of  impeach 
ment.  Tell  them  that  finally  you  have  restored  the  glorious 
doctrine  of  passive  obedience  and  non-resistance  ;  and  if  the 
people  do  not  pour  out  their  indignation  and  imprecations,  I 
have  yet  to  learn  the  character  of  American  freemen. ' ' 

Alas  !  for  Clay  himself  had  not  learned  and  never 
fully  learned  the  character  of  American  freemen. 
In  four  separate  national  elections  Jackson  came  out 
at  the  head  of  the  poll,  either  in  his  own  person  or 
that  of  Van  Buren,  his  creature. 

The  resolution  was  passed,  and  at  midnight  the 
Secretary  of  the  Senate,  by  direction,  drew  black 
lines  around  the  original  resolution  of  censure  and 
across  its  face  wrote  the  fact  that  it  had  been 
expunged.  A  disturbance  in  the  galleries  nearly  led 
to  a  riot,  but  order  was  restored  without  difficulty, 
and  Benton  went  home  triumphant.  Next  day  Jack 
son  spread  a  table  for  the  expungers  and  their 
wives,  in  the  presence  of  his  enemies,  and  a  gay 
time  was  enjoyed,  while  the  members  of  the  Trium 
virate  were  nursing  their  wounds  and  sharpening 
their  knives.  But  never  did  the  iron  pierce  Jackson's 
skin,  much  to  their  disgust.  Probably  Jackson  had 
as  many  failings  as  any  man  who  ever  sat  in  the 
Presidential  chair ;  it  may  be  that  many  of  his  poli- 

262 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

cies  were  either  for  the  moment  or  entirely  improper ; 
yet  the  three  great  intellects  which  seemed  to  com 
bine  in  themselves  nearly  all  the  talent  of  America 
could  prevail  against  him  only  in  minor  matters,  and 
these  affected  the  old  Indian  fighter  little.  In  the 
end  he  rode  down  every  one  of  his  opponents  and 
left  them  bleeding  upon  the  field. 

That  Clay  was  entirely  moved  by  his  notions  of 
justice  in  the  manner  in  which  he  fought  Jackson 
as  a  man  and  a  President  may  be  assumed.  That 
he  failed  to  perceive  the  strength  of  the  older  man's 
position,  and  that  he  frequently  put  himself  strategi 
cally  in  a  worse  position  than  he  did  Jackson,  were 
probably  due  to  the  fact  that  he  (Clay),  after  all,  was 
a  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  in  spite  of  all  his  talk 
about  youthful  poverty  and  lack  of  advantages. 
Almost  all  of  the  cultured  and  the  wise  and  the 
educated  were  against  Jackson,  and  it  was  exas 
perating  to  them  to  see  the  rude  frontiersman 
accomplish  his  purposes,  backed  by  American  de 
mocracy,  while  the  elect  were  passed  over.  For  good 
or  ill,  Jackson  did  represent  the  American  people,  as 
was  plainly  demonstrated  many  times.  It  was  a 
crude  and  untaught  democracy,  perhaps,  but  it  was 
honest,  and  it  liked  the  man  of  action  rather  than 
those  who  spun  theories  or  who  attempted  to  erect 
corporate  power  as  a  national  agency. 

Jackson  had  very  few  theories,  but  he  knew  that 
in  the  Seminole  matter,  Clay  while  Speaker  of 
the  House,  had  attacked  him  in  a  bitter  speech 
which  seems  to  have  been  entirely  deserved,  and  that 
Calhoun,  as  Secretary  of  War,  was  proposing  to  dis 
cipline  him  when  the  intervention  of  John  Quincy 
Adams  saved  him.  For  these  two  men  Jackson  had 
nothing  but  bitter  hatred  all  his  days.  Unlike  them, 
he  could  neither  forgive  nor  forget.  But,  curiously 
enough,  he  always  had  a  high  regard  for  Webster 

263 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

because  that  statesman  had  refused  to  bow  to 
Calhoun,  had  smitten  him  hip  and  thigh,  and  had 
come  out  in  defence  of  the  Union  at  a  time  when 
Jackson  was  talking  from  the  White  House  with 
more  threats  than  he  feared  he  would  be  able 
to  make  good. 

It  is  hard  to  give  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
impression  this  speech  of  Clay's  produced.  If  a 
man  should  go  into  the  gallery  of  the  Senate  now 
and  cry  treason  against  any  member,  there  would  be 
trouble.  But  it  so  happened  that  then  there  were 
many  things  which  had  led  men  to  call  the  govern 
ment  and  the  President  all  sorts  of  names,  and  it  is 
said  that  the  friends  of  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Webster 
were  packed  in  the  galleries,  that  they  were  in 
structed  to  make  a  noise  at  the  proper  time,  and, 
if  possible,  to  prevent  a  vote.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
believe  these  stories,  and  there  is  no  corroborative 
evidence  of  them.  Jackson  had  raised  the  mob 
into  prominence  and  had  used  it  to  good  advantage. 
The  mob  is  seldom  partial,  and  if  it  be  true,  as 
alleged,  that  there  were  in  the  gallery  that  night 
some  of  the  men  who  would  have  been  glad  to 
make  trouble  for  Jackson,  it  is  not  surprising ;  but 
there  is  no  evidence  that  such  is  the  fact. 

Clay,  it  is  said,  went  to  the  Senate  that  day  clad 
in  black  because  he  knew  that  the  end  was  coming. 
It  is  even  said  that  he  refused  to  accept  snuff  of  a 
Democratic  friend  who  was  in  favor  of  expunging. 
There  is  current  a  report  that  he  sent  some  of  his 
friends  to  Benton's  committee-room  to  learn  the 
progress  of  events,  and  that  they  tarried  so  long 
over  the  chickens  and  the  wine,  especially  the  wine, 
that  Clay,  who  never  took  wine  on  such  occasions, 
was  incensed  and  made  unpleasant  remarks,  in 
which  he  quoted  Horace  incorrectly. 

An  amusing  altercation  occurred  when  the  man 
264 


THE   TRIUMVIRATE 

who  had  made  the  trouble  in  the  gallery  was  brought 
to  the  bar  of  the  Senate.  Benton,  who  had  raised 
the  stir,  had  no  desire  to  make  the  man  suffer ;  but 
when  the  prisoner  insisted  on  explanations,  Benton 
thought  he  detected  in  his  demeanor  something  of 
Clay's  inspiration.  The  result  was  that  the  man 
was  released,  and  when  Clay  and  Benton  were  once 
outside  the  Capitol  they  had  an  encounter,  in  which 
Benton  came  off  the  winner.  It  is  reported  that 
after  this  altercation,  almost  unprecedented  in  its 
bitterness,  Benton  insisted  on  seeing  Clay  home, 
and,  refusing  an  invitation  to  cards,  had  the  satisfac 
tion  of  seeing  Clay  go  to  bed  at  the  comparatively 
early  hour  of  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

In  later  days  the  opposing  members  would  have 
left  the  Senate  chamber,  but  it  is  related  that  on 
this  occasion  all  of  them  remained  until  the  last  act 
was  performed.  To  Clay  this  was  gall  and  worm 
wood.  He  had  not  only  introduced  the  original 
resolution,  but  he  had  in  many  speeches  attacked 
Jackson  in  a  way  that  was  only  a  shade  less  than 
unparliamentary.  When  it  was  all  over,  he  walked 
home  without  his  hat,  and  when  he  arrived  at  his 
lodgings,  sent  his  faithful  Charles  after  it,  who  re 
turned  with  one  that  was  not  large  enough  by  sev 
eral  sizes.  Clay  remarked  that  some  one  had  a 
swelled  head  that  night,  but  he  thanked  God  that 
he  was  not  the  one,  and  went  to  sleep.  Next  day 
he  recovered  his  hat,  which  was  a  valuable  beaver, 
and  had  an  exchange  of  wit  with  the  man  who  car 
ried  it  off  On  that  morning  Clay  appeared  in  the 
Senate  as  imperturbable  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
He  gravely  rebuked  Benton  for  an  alleged  slight 
parliamentary  offence,  which  the  Missouri  man  ac 
cepted  with  politeness,  and  the  incident  was  con 
sidered  closed. 

In  the  illustrations  of  this  volume  will  be  found  a 
265 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

copy  of  a  rare  engraving  by  Sartain  of  Clay,  Web 
ster,  and  Jackson  in  one  group,  and  there  is  internal 
evidence  to  show  that  in  this  picture  Sartain  con 
templated  an  engraving  of  the  Triumvirate.  As 
Jackson  and  Calhoun  resembled  each  other  to  a 
remarkable  degree,  it  seems  likely,  however,  that  by 
mistake  the  artist  used  Jackson's  portrait  instead  of 
that  of  Calhoun.  If  so,  the  picture  represents  a 
ludicrous  assemblage.  It  is,  however,  historically 
one  of  the  most  interesting  of  American  pictures 
because  it  shows  the  three  men  in  the  maturity  of 
their  powers,  as  engraved  by  the  first  American 
artist  of  his  time.  If  Calhoun  and  Benton  were  in 
the  picture,  we  would  have  together  the  five  men 
who  practically  controlled  the  destinies  of  this 
country  for  forty  years.  There  were  other  giants 
in  those  days  but  none  comparable  to  the  five 
who,  for  good  or  ill,  exercised  such  authority  in 
the  republic. 

In  this  connection  one  story  of  Webster,  as  re 
ported  by  one  of  his  friends,  is  worthy  of  record. 
According  to  this  tale,  Webster  remarked  that  he 
was  frequently  employed  with  Clay  in  cases  before 
the  Supreme  Court.  As  Clay  was  the  senior  in 
years  and  at  the  bar,  he  always  spoke  first,  and  Web 
ster  complained  that  it  took  half  of  his  own  time 
to  remove  the  bad  impression  which  Clay  had  made 
before  he  could  proceed  to  argue  the-  merits  of  the 
case.  "Clay  is  a  great  statesman,  but  no  lawyer," 
said  Webster.  On  the  other  hand,  Calhoun  is  re 
ported  to  have  said,  "Clay  is  a  great  lawyer,  but  no 
statesman."  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what 
Clay  thought  of  Webster  as  a  lawyer  or  Calhoun  as 
a  statesman. 


266 


3         i-i 

o       58 

I  g 


XX 

CLAY    AND    THE    BANK 

CLAY'S  fight  for  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  or 
any  national  bank,  was  the  bitterest  of  his  career 
and  the  most  disastrous.  Beginning  as  an  opponent 
of  recharter  of  the  first  bank,  the  one  whose  charter 
was  secured  by  Hamilton,  there  are  those  who 
found  in  his  later  constant  defeats  a  sort  of  retribu 
tive  justice  for  his  original  position.  The  truth  is, 
that  when  Clay,  in  the  Senate  in  1810,  spoke  ve 
hemently  against  recharter,  he  had  probably  given 
the  subject  little  serious  attention.  He  was  no  close 
student,  and  had  come  little  in  contact  with  the 
large  affairs  of  business  life.  There  was  no  reason 
why  'a  young  planter-lawyer  in  Kentucky  should 
have  a  profound  knowledge  of  the  subject  of  finance, 
and  it  is  not  likely  that  he  attempted  to  enlarge  his 
information  on  the  subject.  But  it  so  happened 
that  the  speech  he  made  against  recharter  was  the 
one  which  he  regretted  more  than  any  other  in  his 
life,  the  one  which  constantly  came  up  to  vex  him 
in  his  political  career. 

The  financial  situation  in  1810  was  bad  enough, 
as  Secretary  Gallatin  was  constantly  informing  Con 
gress.  It  was  all  very  well  for  Jefferson  to  lay  em 
bargoes  and  Madison  to  declare  non-intercourse, 
but  Gallatin  was  called  upon  constantly  to  meet  the 
deficits  in  the  treasury.  He  tried  all  sorts  of  expe 
dients,  and  the  bank  was  his  right  arm.  It  was  not 
only  a  safe  depository  and  an  excellent  fiscal  agent, 
but  it  was  a  mighty  engine  in  the  commercial  and 
financial  world,  so  that  when  money  was  to  be  bor- 

267 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

rowed,  the  bank  undertook  most  of  the  work.  Also 
it  had  foreign  connections  which  were  exceedingly 
valuable.  Accordingly,  Gallatin  asked  for  a  re- 
charter,  though  Madison  was  in  the  midst  of  his 
serious  constitutional  doubts  upon  this  as  on  so 
many  other  practical  questions. 

Considering  that  the  country  was  in  a  state  of  great 
financial  distress,  just  recovering  from  the  almost 
total  collapse  due  to  the  Embargo,  and  considering 
further  that  members  of  Congress  and  the  adminis 
tration  were  talking  of  going  to  war  either  with 
France,  or  Spain,  or  Great  Britain,  and  perhaps  all 
three,  the  cock-sure  spirit  which  they  maintained  on 
the  financial  question  savored  of  opera  bouffe. 
There  were  some  members  of  Congress  who  remem 
bered  the  days  of  the  Revolution  and  the  chaos 
that  Washington  found  when  he  sent  Hamilton  to 
take  care  of  the  finances,  and  these  were  for  re- 
charter.  But  there  were  others  who  had  a  notion 
that  this  country  could  "lick  the  world,"  that  no  one 
would  touch  us,  that  the  Jefferson  school  of  political 
philosophy  was  complete  and  self-sustaining,  and 
that  the  Constitution  was  to  be  kept  on  the  shelf 
much  of  the  time,  and  under  no  circumstances  must 
there  be  any  talk  about  implied  powers.  Jefferson 
had  been  against  the  bank,  and  therefore  it  must  be 
a  monster  of  iniquity  and  unconstitutionality.  In 
this  fine  attitude  Clay  participated.  He  was  the 
scion  of  the  young  Jeffersonians,  believed  in  his 
country  and  his  State,  and  had  courage  and  assur 
ance  enough  for  several  Napoleons.  And,  indeed, 
there  was  some  excuse  for  such  laxity  of  views  in  a 
man  who  was  raised  so  far  from  commerce,  in  a 
country  where  whiskey  and  tobacco  were  the  staples 
of  currency,  and  where  specie  was  seldom  seen, 
unless  some  Spanish  pieces  from  down  the  river.  If 
Clay  had  confined  his  argument  to  the  allegations 

268 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

that  the  bank  was  a  monstrous  monopoly,  or  that  it 
was  unnecessary,  or  that  it  was  inexpedient,  he 
would  have  come  off  with  more  credit.  But  the  ar 
dent  young  Senator  must  needs  go  into  an  argument 
to  prove  that  the  bank  was  unconstitutional,  and 
therefore  must  be  allowed  to  die  when  its  allotted 
life  of  twenty  years  had  expired.  That  speech  was 
no  more  convincing  then  than  later,  but  Clay  set 
great  store  by  it. 

What  was  still  more  unfortunate  was  that,  if  he 
had  voted  for  recharter,  it  would  have  been  carried  in 
the  Senate,  and  he  probably  could  have  obtained  the 
one  or  two  votes  necessary  in  the  House  to  secure  its 
passage  there.  And  so  the  bank  died  at  Clay's  hands, 
and  when  the  war  with  Great  Britain  came  on,  Gal- 
latin  was  badly  handicapped  in  the  attempt  to  raise 
money.  In  fact,  little  was  secured,  and  the  country 
was  on  the  verge  of  a  financial  collapse  when  Clay 
and  his  associates  made  the  peace. 

By  the  time  the  war  was  over  and  Clay  had  lived 
for  a  period  abroad,  had  been  Speaker  for  some 
years,  and  had  learned  the  art  of  government,  he 
found  the  necessity  for  a  bank  greater  than  he  had 
supposed.  So  when  a  new  bank  was  projected,  he 
supported  it, — Webster  now  being  against  it, — and 
the  measure  became  a  law.  Clay  found  little  necessity 
for  apologizing  at  this  time  for  his  former  course, 
since  the  opposition  was  not  great.  It  was  not  until 
fifteen  years  had  passed  that  he  took  up  the  subject 
in  seriousness,  and  then  he  found  there  were  many 
people  alive  with  very  good  memories. 

When  he  came  back  to  the  Senate  in  December, 
183 1,  the  bank  recharter  was  one  of  the  issues  which 
had  to  be  taken  into  consideration  in  his  programme 
for  the  coming  campaign.  Clay  was  fighting  Jackson, 
and  Jackson  was  against  the  bank ;  therefore  it  was 
natural  that  Clay  became  its  most  ardent  champion. 

269 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

Jackson  probably  knew  less  about  banking  when  he 
was  elected  in  1828  than  did  Clay  in  1810,  and 
cared  as  little  for  it  as  any  man  could  who  did  not 
have  some  responsibilities  in  the  matter.  Jackson 
was  not  at  the  start  inclined  to  take  any  stand  on  the 
question,  but  by  the  time  his  first  message  was  sent  in 
it  was  apparent  that  he  was  growing  suspicious,  for 
he  mentioned  it  in  a  way  that  was  not  friendly.  The 
bank  supporters  were  taken  by  surprise  when  Jack 
son  said  that  the  question  of  recharter  was  one  to 
be  considered  then  and  there,  and  intimated  that  the 
bank  had  not  given  the  stable  currency  which  had 
been  expected.  The  charter  had  some  seven  years 
yet  to  run,  and  the  bank  officers  were  willing  and 
anxious  to  let  sleeping  dogs  lie.  But  they  were  not 
permitted  to  do  so.  Benton  made  them  speak  out. 
He  introduced  a  test  resolution  against  recharter, 
and  lost,  though  he  commanded  more  votes  than 
had  been  expected. 

That  was  all  that  was  done  until  Clay  arrived  on 
the  scene.  The  bank,  anxious  to  keep  out  of  partisan 
politics,  was  still  willing  to  let  the  question  rest 
until  after  the  elections,  hoping  that  Clay  would  win  ; 
but  Clay  considered  it  essential  to  his  programme  that 
the  fighting  be  forced,  and  this  he  did  in  a  master 
ful  way.  The  recharter  was  to  be  on  modified  terms, 
which  gave  the  government  more  advantages  and 
seemed  to  protect  the  people.  Once  more  Benton 
came  to  the  front  and  upset  the  plans  of  the  bank 
people.  While  the  memorial  asking  recharter  was 
in  the  House,  Benton  prepared  a  speech  in  which 
he  preferred  a  long  catalogue  of  charges  against  the 
bank  for  its  violations  of  law,  for  its  high-handed 
usury  and  oppression,  and  for  its  general  harm  to 
the  country.  This  speech  he  had  delivered  by  a 
member,  who  closed  with  a  demand  that  a  commit 
tee  go  to  Philadelphia  and  investigate  the  bank.  At 

270 


CLAY   AND   THE    BANK 

first  this  seemed  likely  to  be  refused.  The  bank's 
friends  were  alarmed,  Clay  was  incensed,  and  some 
warm  words  are  reported  to  have  passed  between 
him  and  Benton.  On  reflection,  Clay  saw  that  it 
would  be  tantamount  to  a  confession  of  guilt  to 
refuse  to  allow  the  bank  to  be  examined,  and  so  a 
committee  of  seven  was  appointed,  but  Benton's  man 
was  omitted.  There  were  three  bank  men,  three 
antibank  men,  and  one  who  signed  the  majority 
report  and  did  nothing  else.  The  majority  reported 
against  recharter  and  the  minority  in  favor  of  the 
extension  asked  for.  In  truth,  nothing  very  serious 
was  discovered  against  the  bank,  except  that  the 
majority  did  not  feel  that  they  were  treated  quite  as 
they  had  expected,  and  the  directors  were  felt  to  be 
assuming  that  they  owned  Congress. 

The  bill  for  recharter  passed  after  some  warm 
debate,  Clay  leading  the  fight  in  the  Senate  and  di 
recting  it  in  the  House.  It  went,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  to  Jackson,  along  with  the  tariff  bill.  The 
tariff  survived,  but  Jackson  smote  the  bank.  It  was 
with  sardonic  humor  that  he  sent  in  a  veto  message 
in  which  all  of  the  argument  and  almost  the  exact 
language  was  taken  from  Clay's  speech  against 
recharter  of  the  first  bank.  That  was  indeed  a  hard 
blow,  and  it  wounded  Clay  deeply.  He  had  con 
stantly  to  apologize  and  explain,  and  in  doing  this 
he  was  not  wholly  successful.  He  tried  to  maintain 
a  semblance  of  consistency,  while  admitting  that  he 
had  been  wrong. 

In  the  Presidential  campaign  which  followed, 
Clay  posed  as  the  champion  of  the  bank.  He  had 
no  hesitancy  in  supporting  it  He  was  so  conscious 
of  the  integrity  of  his  own  motives  and  of  the 
necessity  and  soundness  of  the  bank  that  he  was  not 
afraid  of  any  demagogic  cry  that  might  be  raised 
about  an  issue  between  the  rich  and  the  poor. 

271 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Every  great  nation  had  a  bank,  and  our  own  effort 
to  get  along  without  one  had  been  disastrous. 

When  the  campaign  was  over  and  Clay  had  lost, 
he  still  had  no  fear  of  the  bank,  as  he  thought 
Jackson  might  now  consent  to  recharter,  since  he 
had  won  the  prize  at  stake.  In  this  he  was  mistaken. 
Jackson  had  heard  that  the  bank  had  taken  a  large 
interest  in  the  campaign,  had  spent  a  great  deal  of 
money  trying  to  defeat  him,  and  had  issued  what  he 
considered  libellous  publications.  Moreover,  he 
began  to  believe  the  bank  was  unsound.  This  had 
been  hinted  at  already  in  the  House  ;  but  though 
the  bank  was  undoubtedly  in  difficulties,  it  seems 
likely  that  it  could  have  weathered  them  but  for  an 
unfortunate  policy  which  it  undertook.  During  the 
campaign  it  had  greatly  extended  its  line  of  credit 
to  the  business  community  to  show  how  essential 
and  how  excellent  it  was  in  all  respects.  The  result 
of  the  campaign  being  disastrous,  it  was  necessary 
to  retrench  somewhat,  and  the  outstanding  paper 
was  called  in  more  rapidly  than  the  borrowers  had 
anticipated,  so  that  there  was  distress  in  the  business 
community.  Many  merchants  had  largely  extended 
their  lines  of  credit  to  customers  on  the  strength  of 
the  bank's  liberality,  and  now  they  were  put  to  it  to 
get  accommodations,  and  many  failed. 

During  the  winter  session  of  Congress  the  bank 
played  little  part  in  public  affairs.  It  took  the  whole 
session  for  Clay  to  make  his  compromise  on  the 
tariff  question  to  suit  Calhoun  ;  but  he  did  not  en 
tirely  forget  the  bank  or  the  issue.  On  the  side  of 
the  bank  itself  it  was  unfortunate  in  that  its  presi 
dent,  Nicholas  Biddle,  was  a  man  of  too  many  abili 
ties.  He  had  a  great  desire  to  shine  as  a  letter- 
writer,  and  indeed  he  wrote  entertainingly,  pun- 
gently,  forcefully,  and  sometimes  wittily  ;  but  he  had 
the  fatal  gift  of  sarcasm,  and  by  his  literary  efforts 

272 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

made  more  enemies  than  friends.  He  could  have 
done  a  good  deal  more  by  maintaining  silence.  On 
one  occasion,  when  examined  before  a  Congres 
sional  Committee,  he  remarked,  in  response  to  a 
question,  that  the  National  Bank  had  never  injured 
a  State  bank,  but  it  probably  could  have  closed  up 
a  great  many  or  all  of  them  if  it  had  wished  to  use 
its  power.  This  was  an  amazing  confession  for  a 
man  to  make,  and  it  hurt  his  cause  greatly.  But  he 
was  to  make  many  more  errors.  It  was  during  the 
summer  of  1833  that  Jackson  took  the  situation  in 
his  own  hands  and  removed  the  deposits  from  the 
National  Bank, — that  is  to  say,  he  ceased  deposit 
ing  funds  there  while  continuing  all  treasury  drafts 
upon  that  institution.  To  do  this  he  had  to  dismiss 
Duane,  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  appoint 
one  who  was  more  complaisant  Roger  B.  Taney, 
then  Attorney  General,  was  promoted  to  the  Treasury 
for  the  purpose,  and  Clay  afterwards  made  much  of 
the  alleged  corrupt  bargain  by  which  Taney  was  to 
be  made  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States.  If  such 
a  bargain  was  made,  it  was  gall  and  wormwood  to 
Clay  that,  though  the  subject  was  much  ventilated, 
it  did  not  hurt  Jackson  at  all.  That  statesman  was 
cast  in  a  sterner  mould  than  Clay,  and  cared  for  no 
imputations  of  the  sort. 

The  wrath  of  Clay  and  his  followers  was  extreme. 
And,  indeed,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  any  justifica 
tion  for  the  action,  or  at  least  for  the  way  in  which 
it  was  accomplished.  President  Biddle  was  stunned 
for  the  moment,  and  then  entered  upon  a  course 
which  made  it  difficult  for  his  friends  to  support  him 
with  dignity.  The  directors  of  the  bank  issued  a 
public  letter  in  which  they  spoke  of  the  withdrawal  of 
the  deposits  as  a  "  pretended  order"  signed  by  one 
who  claimed  authority  from  "one  Andrew  Jackson" 
and  a  reputed  Cabinet  This  letter  was  brimming 
is  273 


THE   TRUE   HENRY    CLAY 

with  satire  and  innuendo.  As  a  newspaper  article  it 
would  not  have  been  out  of  place  ;  as  a  corporate 
paper  it  was  a  mistake.  What  Biddle  expected  to 
accomplish  by  issuing  such  a  document  it  is  hard  to 
see,  as  the  only  result,  as  might  have  been  foreseen, 
was  to  make  the  President  more  angry  than  ever, 
while  there  were  many  who  had  really  been  in  favor 
of  the  bank  who  thought  the  display  of  arrogance 
on  the  part  of  Biddle  ill-advised  and  an  insult  to  the 
nation  rather  than  to  Jackson. 

When  Congress  met  in  the  fall  Clay  delivered  an 
impressive  speech  on  the  action  of  the  President, 
which  was  for  the  mostpartiu^good  temper,  but 
was  terrible  in  its  invecKvef^T^yTelt  the  situation 
more  keenly  because  he  had  forced  the  fight  for  the 
bank  against  the  wishes  of  the  directors,  and  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  removal  of  the  deposits  was  the 
result  of  the  action  of  the  bank  in  the  campaign. 
It  is  difficult  in  these  days  to  appreciate  the  enor 
mity  of  this  offense  as  it  impressed  the  greater  por 
tion  of  the  business  community.  The  bank  was 
considered  an  absolutely  indispensable  engine  of 
national  finance, — which  it  was  not, — an  admirable 
medium  for  preserving  exchange  all  over  the  coun 
try, — which  to  a  great  extent  it  was, — and  the 
essential  basis  of  sound  national  currency, — which 
it  certainly  was  not,  though  it  had  done  much. 

Still,  in  the  absence  of  any  other  agency  it  worked, 
on  the  whole,  very  well.  It  undoubtedly  did  extort 
a  large  price  for  effecting  exchange,  was  occasion 
ally  usurious,  but,  what  was  of  more  importance,  it 
lacked  that  sound  management  which  is  essential  to 
solvency.  It  has  been  claimed  for  the  bank  that,  at 
the  time  Jackson  came  to  the  Presidency,  it  was  en 
tirely  solvent,  and  that  it  was  only  the  war  which  he 
made  upon  the  institution  that  compelled  it  to 
finally  go  into  bankruptcy  under  disgraceful  circum- 

274 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

stances.  The  weakness  of  this  argument  is  that  it 
assumes  that  the  charter  of  the  bank  was  a  vested 
right  beyond  the  term  for  which  it  was  granted;  that, 
as  it  was  an  agent  of  the  nation,  it  must  be  supported 
and  protected  not  because  it  was  necessary,  but  be 
cause  it  had  acquired  a  sort  of  prescriptive  right 
in  the  country.  Moreover,  the  assumption  that  a 
corporation  may  protect  itself  against  assaults  by 
corruption  or  by  indulging  in  unsound  finance  is  not 
tenable. 

Clay,  himself,  could  not  easily  refuse  a  request  to 
endorse  the  note  of  a  friend.  In  his  day  such  a 
refusal  was  a  direct  imputation  of  dishonor.  But  on 
one  occasion  he  declined  to  "  back"  the  note  of  a 
man  he  knew  on  the  ground  that  the  man  had  not 
the  assets  nor  the  prospects  of  paying.  "To  hell 
with  Henry  Clay,"  said  the  enraged  suppliant,  and 
he  therefore  went  the  rounds  of  the  town  berating 
Henry  Clay  at  every  step.  Finding  no  one  to  en 
dorse  his  paper,  he  was  about  to  go  home,  when 
Clay  met  him  again,  and  in  a  friendly  way  asked 
him  how  much  money  he  actually  needed  for  imme 
diate  use.  The  man  replied  that  he  must  have  one 
hundred  dollars,  and  that  there  was  not  a  bank  in 
the  country  that  would  loan  it  to  him,  and  not  a 
blanked  blanked  man  who  would  go  his  security. 
In  his  quiet  fashion  Clay  said  to  him  :  "Will  you 
endorse  my  note  and  take  the  money?"  The  sup 
pliant  almost  fell  off  his  mount.  In  the  end  the 
loan  was  made  on  this  basis  and  paid  some  years 
later.  At  that  time  Clay  wanted  a  particularly  fine 
ram,  and  found  that  its  owner  was  his  former  sup 
pliant  who  asked  fifty  dollars  for  it.  Clay  agreed 
to  pay,  and  when  he  came  to  settle,  found  that  one 
copper  cent  was  all  that  would  be  received  as  the 
actual  price  of  transfer.  That  ancient  copper  is  said 
to  be  still  preserved  in  Kentucky. 

275 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

On  another  occasion  Clay  was  asked  to  sue  a  man 
for  the  National  Bank,  and  upon  investigation  of  the 
case  concluded  that  the  man  had  been  only  an  inno 
cent  endorser  without  consideration.  The  case  was 
referred  to  the  central  bank  in  Philadelphia,  and, 
though  the  sum  was  considerable,  it  came  back  with 
the  endorsement  of  Nicholas  Biddle, — "  Whatever 
H.  Clay  says,  will  be  done  in  this  case."  Eventually, 
the  maker  of  the  note  made  a  compromise  and  be 
came  one  of  Clay's  warmest  friends,  while  the  en 
dorser,  who  stood  on  the  brink  of  ruin,  in  the  cam 
paign  of  1843-44,  organized  the  mass  meeting  at 
Dayton,  Ohio,  where  over  one  hundred  thousand 
persons  were  supposed  to  have  gathered. 

Still  again  it  is  related  that  when,  in  1833,  Clay 
received  a  call  from  a  representative  of  the  National 
Bank,  who  claimed  to  have  a  message  from  Mr. 
Biddle,  he  received  the  messenger  with  courtesy,  but 
without  expression  of  friendliness.  The  messenger 
in  a  general  way  called  attention  to  the  subject  of  a 
loan  which  one  of  Clay's  friends  had  received  from 
the  bank,  and  asked  if  he  was  all  right  Clay  is 
said  to  have  looked  at  the  man  fixedly,  and  then  to 
have  risen  to  his  full  six  feet  two  inches,  and  stalked 
into  another  room,  leaving  his  visitor  in  amazed  soli 
tude.  After  half  an  hour's  wait  he  called  a  servant 
and  found  that  Clay  had  gone  to  a  distant  part  of 
the  city.  Clay  usually  employed  profane  words 
on  such  occasions,  and  nothing  angered  him 
more  than  the  intimation  that  he  was  using  his 
position  in  favor  of  the  Biddle  aggregation,  or  that 
he  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  secure  loans  or  to  get 
any  favors.  It  is  remarkable,  considering  the  many 
times  on  which  he  was  approached  in  this  manner, 
that  he  still  preserved  his  equanimity  and  favored  the 
institution  which  had  never  granted  him  any  favor 
except  that  accorded  to  the  most  ordinary  customer. 

276 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

The  story  is  told  that,  while  in  Philadelphia,  he 
was  entertained  handsomely  by  a  man  supposed  to 
be  wealthy,  but  who  actually  was  on  the  verge  of 
bankruptcy,  and  that  Clay  drank  his  wine  and  en 
joyed  the  company.  When,  on  the  next  day,  the 
host  suggested  to  Clay  that  he  would  like  accommo 
dation,  the  statesman's  wrath  is  said  to  have  been 
terrible,  and  the  language  used  not  fit  for  print. 
The  same  man  was  approached  some  years  later  at 
the  time  of  the  Philadelphia  subscription  to  pay 
Clay's  debts,  and  he  refused,  making  himself  ridicu 
lous  by  telling  the  tale.  This  is  on  the  authority  of 
the  grandfather  and  great-grandfather  of  the  writer, 
who  were  on  the  committee.  Included  in  their  nar 
ratives  is  the  incident  of  a  marble  firm  which  was 
approached,  and  not  only  gave  money  for  the  Clay 
fund,  but  announced  that  it  would  be  glad  to  furnish 
the  tomb  of  Clay  if  he  died  in  their  time.  There 
was  perfect  sincerity  in  the  offer,  though  it  had  a 
sardonic  smack  to  it,  and,  in  the  end,  the  sarcopha 
gus  was  furnished  as  promised. 

Continuous  efforts  were  made  to  show  that  Clay 
was  not  only  the  friend  and  ally  of  Nicholas  Biddle, 
but  the  conspirator  who  was  conniving  at  a  monoply 
of  the  national  commerce.  This  was  not  the  case. 
Clay  believed  in  banks  as  much  as  he  believed  in  the 
post-office,  and  he  had  no  more  notion  that  the 
country  could  get  along  without  one  than  the  other. 
It  is  reported  that  Biddle  once  sent  Clay  a  request, 
which  the  latter  did  not  consider  was  couched  in  the 
proper  terms,  and  an  apology  followed,  which  made 
all  the  amends  possible.  Later  Biddle  asked  Clay 
for  a  personal  favor,  which  the  latter  refused  to  grant, 
on  the  ground  that  it  would  be  improper  for  him  to 
do  so.  This  affected  Biddle  deeply,  for  he  sent  a 
prominent  man  to  see  Clay,  and  the  interview  was 
far  from  satisfactory.  This  was  in  1833,  when  Clay 

277 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

was  doing  all  he  could,  as  he  said,  to  stop  nullifica 
tion,  and  he  was  not  much  inclined  to  worry  about 
the  bank.  What  that  letter  contained  is  not  known, 
but  there  was  something  that  seemed  to  indicate  to 
Clay  that  he  must  investigate  a  little  closer,  which 
he  did,  and  became  a  greater  bank  man  than  ever. 
Those  who  say  that  at  this  time  Clay  was  financially 
seduced  by  the  bank  have  no  just  ground  for  their 
opinion. 

The  bank  declared  that  Jackson  drove  it  into 
politics,  from  which  it  certainly  wished  to  abstain, 
and  that  he  finally  killed  it  because  it  went  into  poli 
tics.  That  under  normal  conditions  the  bank  might 
have  survived  seems  likely  ;  that  Jackson  was  unnec 
essarily  harsh  in  his  actions  is  unquestionable  ;  but 
there  was  blame  on  both  sides,  and  Clay  once  more 
was  a  sufferer.  He  saw  that  this  bank  was  dead, 
and  all  his  hopes  were  centred  on  a  new  institution 
when  the  Whigs  should  come  into  power. 

In  his  phmppic  against  Jackson,  Clay  ridiculed  the 
notion  that  State  banks  were  safer  depositories  than 
the  National  Bank,  and  gave  some  figures  to  estab 
lish  his  contention,  which  soon  was  shown  to  be  all 
too  true  ;  for  eventually  the  government  lost  most 
of  its  money  in  the  panic  of  1837. ^£ut^  what 
makes  this  speech  pathetic  is  its  peroration.  Qay 
was  convinced  that  the  country  was  done  for  unless 
there  was  a  change  from  the  Jacksonian  dynasty. 
He  hoped  to  be  a  candidate  once  more  in  1836, 
though  he  was  not,  and  on  this,  as  on  all  occasions, 
he  poured  forth  the  vials  of  his  wrath  upon  the  de 
voted  head  of  Old  Hickory. 

' '  We  behold  the  usual  incidents  of  approaching  tyranny. 
The  land  is  filled  with  spies  and  informers,  and  detraction 
and  denunciation  are  the  orders  of  the  day.  People,  espe 
cially  official  incumbents  in  this  place,  no  longer  dare  speak 
in  the  fearless  tones  of  manly  freedom,  but  in  the  cautious 

278 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

whispers  of  trembling  slaves.  The  premonitory  symptoms 
of  despotism  are  upon  us,  and  if  Congress  do  not  apply  an 
instantaneous  and  effective  remedy,  the  fatal  collapse  will 
soon  come  on,  and  we  shall  die, — ignobly  die,  base,  mean 
and  abject  slaves,  the  scorn  and  contempt  of  mankind, — 
unpitied,  unwept,  unmourned!" 

Such  rhetorical  expressions  were  well  enough  in 
politics,  but  they  did  not  convince  the  public,  which 
adhered  to  Jackson  and  placed  his  nominee,  Van 
Buren,  in  the  chair.  All  Clay  could  do  was  to  get 
the  Senate  to  pass  a  resolution  of  censure  upon 
Jackson  for  removing  the  deposits. 

When,  in  1841,  the  Whigs  did  come  into  power, 
Clay  assumed  the  position  of  party  dictator  without 
question.  One  of  the  chief  items  in  his  programme 
was  the  resurrection  of  a  national  bank  to  take  the 
place  of  the  sub-treasury  system,  which  had  been 
erected  during  Van  Buren's  term  practically  as  it 
exists  to-day.  Had  Harrison  lived  there  would  have 
been  no  trouble,  but  Tyler,  who  turned  apostate, 
seemed  more  desirous  of  killing  Clay  than  of  accom 
plishing  any  other  object  Though  Tyler  had  at 
one  time  professed  himself  a  good  Whig,  he  now 
proclaimed  that  he  had  never  been  anything  but  a 
strict  construction  Democrat,  and  that  this  was 
known  when  he  was  nominated.  It  was  idle  to 
fight  over  mere  terms,  so  long  as  Tyler  was  deter 
mined  to  carry  out  his  personal  ends  regardless  of 
any  other  considerations.  *  Thus  was  for  the  first 
time  demonstrated  the  folly  of  nominating  for  vice- 
president  a  man  not  a  stalwart  party  leader. 

The  bank  measure  was  passed  by  Congress,  and 
not  until  the  last  moment  was  there  any  suggestion 
of  a  veto,  since  Tyler  had  hinted  vaguely  at  some 
such  legislation  in  his  message.  Tyler  had  by  this 
time  been  informed  by  some  superserviceable  and 
ambitious  friends  that  the  way  to  get  along  in 

279 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

politics  was  to  set  up  in  business  for  himself,  and  use 
his  power  as  President  to  draw  from  both  of  the 
regular  parties,  and  thus  become  President  once 
more.  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  account  for  the 
psychological  changes  through  which  Tyler  passed 
in  a  few  weeks.  He  vetoed  the  bank  bill  in  a  mes 
sage  which  was  cunningly  devised.  He  did  not  at 
this  time  object  to  any  bank,  but  pointed  out  specific 
objections,  and  his  intimation  was  that,  if  amended 
in  accordance  with  his  views,  the  bill  would  be 
signed.  From  this  point  there  are  diverging  state 
ments  of  what  happened.  The  friends  of  Tyler 
indignantly  deny  that  he  was  willing  to  sign  any  sort 
of  a  bank  bill,  but  members  of  his  cabinet  and 
prominent  Whigs  have  stated  so  categorically  as  to 
be  entitled  to  belief,  that  Tyler  agreed  to  a  new 
"fiscal  corporation"  bill  which  met  his  objections, 
that  he  actually  took  the  measure  and  interlined  it 
to  correct  some  slight  details,  and  that  he  gave  his 
solemn  promise  to  sign  it.  This  new  bill  was 
promptly  passed,  and  as  promptly  vetoed  ;  the  Cabi 
net,  excepting  Webster,  resigned,  and  the  Whig 
party  put  on  mourning. 

Clay's  attacks  on  Tyler  were  the  more  terrible 
because  constrained.  He  did  not  denounce  him  as 
he  had  Jackson,  for  Tyler  at  one  time  had  been  one 
of  his  warmest  friends  and  had  resigned  from  the 
Senate  rather  than  obey  the  instructions  of  the  Vir 
ginia  Legislature  to  vote  for  the  expunging  resolu 
tion  of  Benton,  designed  to  clear  the  record  of 
Jackson  from  censure  for  removing  the  deposits. 
But  Clay  was  bitter  and  severe.  He  convicted 
Tyler  of  perfidy  and  of  inconsistency,  which  did  no 
good  at  all.  Senator  Rives,  of  Virginia,  having 
defended  Tyjer,  Clay  turned  on  him  in  a  speech 
which  is  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  drastic 
in  his  career,  though  as  reported  it  hardly  bears  that 

280 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

stamp.  It  would  seem  that  Clay  wanted  some  vic 
tim,  and  in  Rives  he  found  one  who  could  be  ham 
mered  without  mercy.  This  was  the  end  of  all 
bank  legislation  of  the  sort.  The  national  banks 
established  in  the  Civil  War  have  no  relation  what 
ever  to  the  former  national  banks,  and  are  an  in 
geniously  contrived  institution  growing  out  of  con 
ditions  which  never  could  have  arisen  in  peace. 

In  this  connection  it  is  well  to  consider  Clay's 
whole  position  in  relation  to  the  currency.  It  is 
not  strange  that  a  man  of  his  temperament,  environ 
ment,  and  education  should  be  little  versed  in 
finance,  that  most  difficult  of  the  sciences.  Though 
he  ever  insisted  that  he  was  not  in  favor  perma 
nently  of  paper  currency,  his  predilections  were  all 
in  its  favor,  and  his  vote  was  almost  invariably 
against  all  efforts  to  restore  the  specie  standard.  In 
the  South  little  specie  was  circulated,  and  not  only 
bank  notes,  but  promissory  notes  were  commonly 
used  and  settlements  made  once  a  year.  Clay  did 
not  believe  there  was  enough  specie  to  be  secured 
to  conform  to  Benton's  plan  of  using  it  alone  as 
national  currency.  In  this  he  was  mistaken.  The 
original  mint  laws  of  the  country  had  established 
the  ratio  between  gold  and  silver  at  fifteen  to  one, 
which  was  not  correct,  and  as  a  result,  following 
Gresham's  law,  all  the  gold  left  the  country.  Ben- 
ton,  against  the  vote  of  Clay,  secured  the  passage 
of  an  entirely  new  mintage  law,  making  the  ratio 
sixteen  to  one,  which  was  not  strictly  correct,  and 
establishing  branch  mints.  As  a  result  gold  poured 
back  into  the  country,  and  for  the  first  time  in  their 
lives  many  persons  actually  used  gold  coin  in  busi 
ness.  These  were  known  as  "  Benton's  mint  drops," 
and  greatly  aided  Jackson  in  politics. 

When  the  Specie  Circular  was  issued,  by  which 
the  government  refused  to  accept  anything  but 

281 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

specie  for  public  lands,  Clay  once  more  poured  out 
the  vials  of  his  wrath  upon  the  devoted  heads  of 
Benton  and  Jackson.  This  order  was  issued  because 
of  the  speculation  in  public  lands  by  means  of  irre 
deemable  bank  notes.  Millions  of  acres  were  sold, 
and  all  the  government  got  was  notes  of  doubtful 
value.  As  the  government  had  a  right  to  demand 
coin,  it  did  so,  though  the  order  was  unnecessarily 
harsh  and  was  made  at  a  critical  time. 

The  panic  of  1837  was  by  the  Whigs  attributed 
entirely  to  the  fact  that  Jackson  had  withdrawn  the 
bank  deposits  and  had  issued  the  Specie  Circular. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  these  two  acts  precipitated 
the  crisis,  but  it  would  be  unwise  to  say  they  were 
the  sole  causes.  For  years  the  country  had  been 
engaged  in  wild  speculation,  the  number  of  State 
banks  had  increased  to  a  thousand,  and  most  of 
these  had  little  specie  to  redeem  their  notes,  while 
others  had  an  utterly  inadequate  amount.  Making 
money  by  the  printing-press  proved  so  easy  that  it 
became  a  popular  industry,  and  there  were  some 
political  philosophers  who  thought  that  at  last  the 
era  of  complete  and  continuous  national  prosperity 
had  set  in. 

When  Jackson  perceived  that  the  government 
was  in  danger  of  losing  the  lands,  and  the  alleged 
money  paid  for  them,  he  issued  the  Specie  Circular 
against  the  advice  of  his  entire  Cabinet,  who  thought 
it  premature.  There  was  not  enough  available 
specie  in  the  country  to  pay  for  the  lands,  especially 
as  the  treasury  was  just  being  depleted  to  dis 
tribute  the  surplus  among  the  States.  Immediately 
business  depression  set  in,  and  when  Benton  warned 
Van  Buren,  just  before  he  took  office,  of  the  coming 
storm,  "  Matty  Van"  replied  by  stating  that  Ben- 
ton's  friends  feared  he  was  a  little  "  gone  in  the 
head  "  on  the  subject.  In  a  few  months  the  storm 

282 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

broke.  The  panic  was  the  greatest  the  country  had 
ever  known,  and  one  of  its  results  was  the  election 
of  the  Whig  candidates  in  1 840.  In  the  meantime, 
Clay  and  others  struggled  for  remedial  legislation, 
though  not  much  was  accomplished.  The  nation 
lost  heavily  by  the  failure  of  nearly  every  bank 
containing  Federal  funds  ;  but,  though  the  Specie 
Circular  was  eventually  modified,  nothing  was  done 
towards  establishing  a  new  bank.  Eventually,  the 
discovery  of  gold  in  California  settled  the  specie 
standard  beyond  all  question,  and  Clay  was  com 
pelled  to  let  the  subject  alone. 

His  policy  in  supporting  the  bank  was  that  of  a 
public  man  who  looked  upon  the  institution  as 
essential  to  the  government.  There  was  no  trace 
of  corruption  in  his  connection  with  the  institution, 
though  such  charges  were  made,  only  to  be  re 
futed.  He  was  at  one  time  attorney  for  the  bank, 
which  was  proper  enough.  He  borrowed  money, 
which  he  repaid.  His  impulsive  nature  led  him 
into  a  warmth  of  expression,  in  his  championship, 
such  as  gave  rise  to  tales  of  personal  interest,  but 
these  were  untrue.  In  financial  matters,  Clay  was 
scrupulous  in  the  extreme.  He  borrowed  money, 
as  did  all  men  at  that  time  and  this,  but  he  paid  his 
debts.  As  a  constructive  financier  he  had  his  limi 
tations  ;  but  what  he  would  have  done,  if  given  an 
opportunity,  cannot  well  be  stated,  since  he  was 
ever  in  opposition  to  the  administration,  and  no 
bill  that  was  passed  entirely  met  his  views.  They 
were  modified  to  meet  the  known  views  of  mod 
erates,  and  the  very  last  one  sent  to  Tyler  was  so 
far  from  meeting  Clay's  ideas  that  he  must  have 
seen  its  demise  with  less  tears  than  under  other 
circumstances. 

Clay,  as  a  financier,  ever  sought  to  lead  the 
country  into  what  seemed  to  him  the  proper  paths 

283 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

of  legislation.  That  his  views  were  less  sound  than 
those  of  Benton  has  come  to  be  generally  recog 
nized,  though  both  parties  indulged  in  legislation 
with  a  recklessness  that  was  far  from  commendable. 
It  is  but  fair  to  his  memory  to  quote  from  a  speech 
made  at  a  critical  time,  when  he  was  accused  of 
being  personally  interested  in  the  corporation. 
Benton  charged  that  at  one  time  seventy  members 
of  Congress  were  given  favors  by  the  bank  to  in 
fluence  their  votes.  Clay  arose  in  his  seat  one  day, 

' '  and  begged  permission  to  trespass  a  few  moments  longer  on 
the  Senate,  to  make  a  statement  concerning  himself  per 
sonally.  He  had  heard  that  one  high  in  office  had  allowed 
himself  to  assert  that  a  dishonorable  connection  had  subsisted 
between  him  (Clay)  and  the  Bank  of  the  United  States. 
When  the  present  charter  was  granted,  he  voted  for  it ;  and, 
having  done  so,  he  did  not  feel  himself  at  liberty  to  sub 
scribe,  and  he  did  not  subscribe,  for  a  single  share  in  the 
stock  of  the  bank,  although  he  confidently  anticipated  a 
great  rise  in  the  value  of  the  stock.  A  few  years  afterwards, 
during  the  presidency  of  Mr.  Jones,  it  was  thought,  by  some 
of  his  friends  at  Philadelphia,  expedient  to  make  him  (Clay) 
a  director  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  ;  and  he  was  made 
a  director  without  any  consultation  with  him.  For  that  pur 
pose  five  shares  were  purchased  for  him,  by  a  friend,  for 
which  he  (Clay)  afterwards  paid.  When  he  ceased  to  be  a 
director,  a  short  time  subsequently,  he  disposed  of  those 
shares.  He  does  not  now  own,  and  has  not  for  many  years 
been  the  proprietor  of,  a  single  share. 

"  When  Mr.  Cheves  was  appointed  president  of  the  bank, 
its  affairs  in  the  States  of  Kentucky  and  Ohio  were  in  great 
disorder ;  and  his  (Clay' s)  professional  services  were  en 
gaged  during  several  years  for  the  Bank  in  those  States. 
He  brought  a  vast  number  of  suits,  and  transacted  a  great 
amount  of  professional  business  for  the  bank.  Among 
other  suits  was  that  for  the  recovery  of  the  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  seized  under  the  authority  of  a  law  of 
Ohio,  which  he  carried  through  the  inferior  and  supreme 
courts.  He  was  paid  by  the  bank  the  usual  compensation 
for  these  services,  and  no  more.  And  he  ventured  to  assert 
that  no  professional  fees  were  ever  more  honestly  and  fairly 
earned.  He  had  not,  however,  been  the  counsel  for  the 

284 


CLAY   AND   THE   BANK 

bank  for  upwards  of  eight  years  past.  He  does  not  owe  the 
bank,  or  any  one  of  its  branches,  a  solitary  cent.  About 
twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago,  owing  to  the  failure  of  a  highly 
estimable  (now  deceased)  friend,  a  large  amount  of  debt  had 
been,  as  his  indorser,  thrown  upon  him  (Clay),  and  it  was 
principally  due  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  He  (Clay) 
established  for  himself  a  rigid  economy,  a  sinking  fund,  and 
worked  hard,  and  paid  off  the  debt  long  since,  without  re 
ceiving  from  the  bank  the  slightest  favor.  Whilst  others 
around  him  were  discharging  their  debts  in  property,  at  high 
valuations,  he  periodically  renewed  his  note,  paying  the  dis 
count,  until  it  was  wholly  extinguished. ' ' 

This  is  the  official  report  of  his  speech,  which  in 
those  times  was  in  the  third  person,  as  is  that  of  the 
speeches  in  the  British  Parliament  to  this  day. 


285 


XXI 

SENATORIAL    COLLOQUIES 

IN  a  career  in  the  House  and  Senate  covering 
most  of  forty-six  years,  Clay  was  brought  in  direct 
relations  with  almost  every  statesman  of  the  first 
half  of  the  century.  Washington  and  Hamilton 
had  passed  away  before  he  appeared  on  the  stage, 
but,  aside  from  these,  Clay  was  personally  known  to 
nearly  every  man  of  importance  who  served  his 
country  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to 
near  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War. 

In  his  ordinary  intercourse  with  men  Clay  was 
courteous,  fascinating,  almost  hypnotic.  It  was  diffi 
cult  to  escape  from  his  spell,  even  when  members 
differed  from  him  absolutely  in  politics.  The  story 
is  told  of  a  Jacksonian  Democrat  who  was  seldom 
seen  in  his  seat,  but  was  summoned  from  a  commit 
tee  room  when  there  was  a  roll-call.  On  being  re 
proved  for  his  laxity  he  said  : 

' '  Gentlemen,  I  was  sent  here  to  support  Jackson  and  fight 
Clay.  I  have  been  instructed  by  the  Legislature  and  warned 
from  the  White  House.  I  am  willing  to  do  my  duty  when  I 
can,  but  I'm  d — d  if  I  can  listen  to  Henry  Clay  speak  and 
believe  he  is  wrong. ' ' 

In  the  present  day  there  are  not  many  speeches 
in  Congress  which  convince  members.  It  is  probable 
that  in  the  earlier  period  not  many  men  could  actu 
ally  carry  a  proposition  by  mere  force  of  a  speech, 
but  it  is  fairly  certain  that  no  man  who  ever  sat  in 
either  branch  of  Congress  had  the  moving  power  of 

286 


SENATORIAL    COLLOQUIES 

Clay.  He  could  persuade,  argue,  convict,  and 
dragoon  more  men  than  any  other  American  repre 
sentative.  This  wonderful  gift,  however,  was  not 
always  sufficient  to  carry  his  legislation  through,  as  he 
was  to  a  great  extent  overborne  either  in  the  Congres 
sional  halls  or  at  the  White  House.  With  all  that 
personal  winsomeness  which  amounted  to  feminine 
charm,  without  detracting  from  his  virility,  he  was  an 
imperious  man,  and  drew  the  line  exceedingly  close 
at  times.  He  was  ever  ready  for  a  forensic  encoun 
ter,  and  first  and  last  was  in  angry  debate  with  nearly 
all  the  members.  He  brooked  neither  opposition 
nor  the  slightest  criticism,  and  was,  metaphorically 
speaking,  ever  ready  for  a  knock-down  blow,  when 
Senators  disagreed  with  him.  As  he  was  Speaker 
of  the  House  during  practically  all  of  the  years  he 
sat  in  that  body,  he  had  little  need  for  argument 
there,  since  he  was  the  ruling  power.  Only  when  in 
Committee  of  the  Whole  did  he  come  into  personal 
contact  with  members,  and  then  seldom  with  any 
severity.  He  was  then  leading,  not  driving. 

In  1824,  while  serving  his  last  term  in  the  House, 
he  came  into  contact  with  John  Randolph,  as  already 
recited  Randolph  was  in  his  age,  and  greatly  dis 
turbed  mentally,  so  that  his  sanity  was  questioned. 
Only  a  little  later  Clay  challenged  him  to  the  duel  for 
remarks  made  over  the  "  corrupt  bargain,"  though  he 
hesitated  some  time  as  to  whether  his  opponent  was 
mentally  sound.  His  excuse  was,  that  as  the  State 
of  Virginia,  wherein  he  (Clay)  was  born,  had  just 
elected  him  to  the  Senate,  it  would  be  absurd  to 
claim  that  he  was  mentally  and  morally  incompetent. 
This  passage  at  arms,  both  in  the  House  and  on 
"  the  field  of  honor,"  rankled  long  in  the  breasts  of 
both,  and  both  were  in  their  hearts  ashamed  of 
their  conduct.  Clay's  last  encounter  with  Randolph 
was  when  the  old  man  was  dying.  By  this  time 

287 


THE  TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

they  had    become    reconciled   under  the  following 
circumstances,  as  related  by  himself: 

' '  You  ask  how  amity  was  restored  between  Mr.  Randolph 
and  me  ?  There  was  no  explanation,  no  intervention.  Ob 
serving  him  in  the  Senate  one  night,  feeble,  and  looking  as 
if  he  were  not  long  for  this  world,  and  being  myself  engaged 
on  a  work  of  peace  (the  compromise  tariff)  with  correspond 
ing  feelings,  I  shook  hands  with  him.  The  salutation  was 
cordial  on  both  sides.  I  afterwards  left  a  card  at  his  lodg 
ings,  where,  I  understand,  he  has  been  confined  by  sick 
ness." 

A  little  later  Randolph  was  able  to  be  carried  to 
the  Senate,  and  as  Clay  arose  to  address  the  Senate, 
the  invalid's  view  was  obscured,  whereupon  he  cried 
to  his  neighboring  Senators  :  "  Lift  me  up  !  Lift  me 
up  !  I  came  here  to  hear  that  voice  again." 

It  was  the  last  time  he  heard  it,  but  it  is  a  tribute 
to  the  wonderful  powers  of  Clay  that  one  of  the  last 
sentiments  uttered  in  public  by  Randolph  was  this  : 

"  There  is  one  man,  and  only  one  man,  who  can  save  the 
Union.  That  man  is  Henry  Clay.  I  know  he  has  the  power. 
I  believe  he  will  be  found  to  have  the  patriotism  and  firmness 
equal  to  the  occasion." 

This  incident  is  mentioned  first  because  some  of 
the  encounters  between  Clay  and  others  did  not 
result  so  happily.  He  had  many  disputes  with  Ben- 
ton,  with  whom  he  was  at  various  times  upon  terms 
of  personal  friendship  and  deadly  enmity.  There 
were  years  when  he  would  not  speak  to  Webster, 
and  other  years  when  he  would  only  recognize  Cal- 
houn  in  the  most  formal  manner,  though  they  were 
acting  in  a  sort  of  harmony  all  the  time.  In  1832 
Clay  came  into  contact  with  the  venerable  Samuel 
Smith,  of  Maryland,  one  of  the  few  survivors  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  and  a  man  of  many  abilities, 
though  open  to  severe  criticism  for  many  of  his  acts. 

288 


SENATORIAL   COLLOQUIES 

Clay  was  at  this  time  less  than  fifty  years  old,  with 
the  most  important  portion  of  his  career  before  him. 
He  was  preparing  for  the  Presidential  campaign  of 
that  year,  and  in  the  course  of  debate  mentioned 
his  age  and  offered  an  apology  for  what  might  be 
deemed  failing  powers  on  account  of  his  advanced 
years.  Upon  this,  Hayne  very  gracefully  turned 
the  subject  into  a  compliment,  saying  that  Clay  had  so 
beautifully  apologized  and  explained  that  he  had 
proved  himself  to  be  in  the  full  flush  of  manhood. 
This  was  done  with  grace,  but  Smith  in  his  heavy 
sort  of  way  seemed  to  think  that  Clay  was  reflect 
ing  on  advancing  years  in  a  personal  manner,  and 
got  up  to  announce  that  he  (old  enough  to  be  Clay's 
father)  could  not  compl'ain  of  advancing  years  or  in 
firmities  attendant  thereon,  nor  would  he  offer  any 
apology  for  the  insufficiency  of  his  own  speech. 
This  stirred  Clay  to  the  quick.  His  original  state 
ment  had  been  rhetorical  rather  than  actual,  and 
Clay  would  have  been  the  first  man  to  resent  the 
insinuation  from  anyone  else,  so  he  considered  that 
Hayne  and  Smith  were  making  game  of  him  and  re 
turned  to  the  attack.  He  seemed  especially  annoyed 
because  Smith  had  said  that  when  Clay  was  speaking 
of  his  age  he  (Smith)  had  overheard  a  young  woman 
say:  "  Why,  I  think  he  is  mighty  pretty." 

Now,  Clay  was  fond  enough  of  the  praise  of 
women,  but  did  not  relish  this  sort  of  an  injection 
into  the  debate,  so  he  made  an  attack  on  Smith  as 
to  his  political  action,  hoping  to  turn  the  personali 
ties  into  a  more  agreeable  channel.  Smith  replied 
warmly  that  as  far  back  as  1795  he  was  in  favor  of 
protection,  and  that  he  had  afterwards  abandoned  it. 
Clay  then  quoted  the  lines  : 


"  Old  politicians  chew  on  wisdom  past, 
And  totter  on  in  blunders  to  the  last." 

289 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Smith  retorted,  in  rage  : 

"The  last  allusion  is  unworthy  of  the  gentleman.  Totter, 
sir,  I  totter  ?  Though  some  twenty  years  older  than  the 
gentleman,  I  can  yet  stand  firm,  and  am  yet  able  to  correct 
his  errors.  I  could  take  a  view  of  the  gentleman's  course, 
which  would  show  how  inconsistent  he  has  been. ' '  [Mr.  Clay 
exclaimed  :  "Take  it,  sir,  take  it — I  dare  you."]  [Cries  of 
"order."] 

"  No,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Smith,  "  I  will  not  take  it.  I  will  not 
so  far  disregard  what  is  due  to  the  dignity  of  the  Senate. ' ' 

This  is  a  curious  example  of  Clay's  temperament 
when  under  unnatural  excitement.  As  a  rule,  he 
had  the  greatest  respect  for  old  age,  and  would 
have  been  the  last  to  insult  gray  hairs.  It  so  hap 
pened  that  at  the  right  psychological  moment  the 
connection  between  Smith's  age  and  his  desertion  of 
what  Clay  supposed  to  be  a  righteous  cause  gave 
birth  to  sentiments  that  in  his  better  moments  he 
must  have  regretted. 

Another  encounter  was  even  more  ridiculous.  In 
1834,  after  the  hard  times  had  come  on  which  Clay 
and  his  followers  attributed  to  the  Specie  Circular 
and  the  withdrawal  of  the  deposits,  Clay  made 
in  the  Senate  an  impassioned  speech  addressed 
really  to  the  nation,  but  with  an  eye  to  spectacular 
effect  at  the  moment.  Clay  was  a  genuine  actor. 
He  could  assume  almost  any  role  with  complete 
verisimilitude,  and  in  this  case  he  was  undoubtedly 
actuated  by  the  highest  motives,  though  the  judg 
ment  he  exercised  can  well  be  criticised  in  view  of 
the  sequel.  Van  Buren  was  in  the  chair,  and  al 
though  all  Senators  must  address  the  Chair,  Clay 
chose  to  make  the  occasion  personal.  He  spoke 
to  him  as  the  confidant  and  political  partner  of 
Jackson,  and  not  to  the  Vice-President  After  di 
lating  at  length  on  the  woes  of  the  country,  Clay 
spoke  directly  to  Van  Buren  as  follows  : 

290 


SENATORIAL   COLLOQUIES 

"By  your  official  and  personal  relations  with  the  President, 
you  maintain  with  him  an  intercourse  which  I  neither  enjoy 
nor  covet.  Go  to  him  and  tell  him,  without  exaggeration,  but 
in  the  language  of  truth  and  sincerity,  the  actual  condition 
of  his  bleeding  country.  Tell  him  it  is  nearly  ruined  and 
undone  by  the  measures  which  he  has  been  induced  to  put  in 
operation.  Tell  him  that  his  experiment  is  operating  on  the 
nation  like  the  philosopher's  experiment  upon  a  convulsed 
animal,  in  an  exhausted  receiver,  and  that  it  must  expire,  in 
agony,  if  he  does  not  pause,  give  it  free  and  sound  circula 
tion,  and  suffer  the  energies  of  the  people  to  be  revived  and 
restored.  Tell  him  that,  in  a  single  city,  more  than  sixty 
bankruptcies,  involving  a  loss  of  upwards  of  fifteen  millions 
of  dollars,  have  occurred.  Tell  him  of  the  alarming  decline 
in  the  value  of  all  property,  of  the  depreciation  of  all  the 
products  of  industry,  of  the  stagnation  in  every  branch  of 
business,  and  of  the  close  of  numerous  manufacturing  estab 
lishments,  which,  a  few  short  months  ago,  were  in  active  and 
flourishing  operation.  Depict  to  him,  if  you  can  find  lan 
guage  to  portray,  the  heart-rending  wretchedness  of  thousands 
of  the  working  classes  cast  out  of  employment.  Tell  him  of 
the  tears  of  helpless  widows,  no  longer  able  to  earn  their 
bread,  and  of  unclad  and  unfed  orphans  who  have  been 
driven,  by  his  policy,  out  of  the  busy  pursuits  in  which  but 
yesterday  they  were  gaining  an  honest  livelihood.  Say  to 
him  that  if  firmness  be  honorable,  when  guided  by  truth  and 
justice,  it  is  intimately  allied  to  another  quality,  of  the  most 
pernicious  tendency,  in  the  prosecution  of  an  erroneous  sys 
tem.  Tell  him  how  much  more  true  glory  is  to  be  won  by 
retracing  false  steps,  than  by  blindly  rushing  on  until  his 
country  is  overwhelmed  in  bankruptcy  and  ruin.  Tell  him 
of  the  ardent  attachment,  the  unbounded  devotion,  the  en 
thusiastic  gratitude,  towards  him,  so  often  signally  manifested 
by  the  American  people,  and  that  they  deserve,  at  his  hands, 
better  treatment.  Tell  him  to  guard  himself  against  the 
possibility  of  an  odious  comparison  with  that  worst  of  the 
Roman  emperors,  who,  contemplating  with  indifference  the 
conflagration  of  the  mistress  of  the  world,  regaled  himself 
during  the  terrific  scene  in  the  throng  of  his  dancing  courtiers. 
If  you  desire  to  secure  for  yourself  the  reputation  of  a  public 
benefactor,  describe  to  him  truly  the  universal  distress  already 
produced,  and  the  certain  ruin  which  must  ensue  from  perse 
verance  in  his  measures.  Tell  him  that  he  has  been  abused, 
deceived,  betrayed,  by  the  wicked  counsels  of  unprincipled 
men  around  him." 

291 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

There  was  a  good  deal  more  of  this  apostrophe, 
and  it  reads  well.  In  fact,  it  reads  much  like  some 
of  the  speeches  which  Shakespeare  puts  in  the  mouths 
of  his  characters,  rather  than  any  recorded  history. 
Clay  sat  down  in  a  perfect  heat  of  enthusiasm. 
Whether  he  actually  expected  the  Vice-President  to 
be  moved  by  what  he  said,  or  whether  he  thought 
the  country  would  understand  his  appeal,  cannot  be 
stated,  but  it  is  certain  that  he  was  not  prepared  for 
the  result.  During  a  considerable  portion  of  his 
speech  Clay  had  abused  both  Jackson  and  Van  Bu- 
ren,  and  there  were  some  members  of  the  Senate 
who  thought  the  occasion  was  ripe  for  pistols  and 
coffee  for  two.  When  Clay  had  concluded,  Van 
Buren,  with  great  deliberation,  called  a  Senator  to 
the  chair,  and  walked  leisurely  over  to  Clay  and 
asked  him  for  a  pinch  of  his  Maccoboy  snuff,  as  if 
nothing  in  the  world  had  happened.  Clay,  with  the 
best  composure  he  could  muster,  gave  him  his  snuff 
box,  and  as  Van  Buren  resumed  his  seat  the  Ken 
tucky  statesman  had  a  sinking  heart,  knowing  that 
he  had  met  a  man  who  had,  if  not  his  own  original 
arts,  at  least  the  power  to  snuff  political  candles. 

On  a  previous  occasion,  Clay  had  come  into  con 
flict  with  Benton,  because  the  latter  had  become  a 
warm  supporter  of  Jackson.  In  early  life  Jackson 
had  engaged  in  a  brawl  with  Benton  and  the  latter's 
brother,  in  which  a  large  number  of  persons  were 
wounded,  but  no  one  killed.  For  years  afterwards 
Benton  had  hated  Jackson,  and  was  a  supporter,  at 
first,  of  Clay  for  the  Presidency  in  1824.  Later 
Jackson  and  Benton  became  reconciled  and  the 
warmest  of  friends.  When  Clay  fell  out  with  Jack 
son,  he  took  occasion  to  taunt  Benton  with  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  formerly  opposed  to  Jackson  and 
had  now  come  to  his  support.  To  this  Benton 
replied  : 

292 


HENRY    CLAY 

( From  a  daguerrotype  taken  in  1847.  Declared  by  many  of  his  most  intimate 
friends  to  be  the  most  characteristic  portrait  of  Clay's  maturer  years  that  exists. 
Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 


SENATORIAL    COLLOQUIES 

"  It  is  true,  sir,  that  I  had  an  affray  with  General  Jackson, 
and  that  I  did  complain  of  his  conduct.  We  fought,  sir  ;  and 
we  fought,  I  hope,  like  men.  When  the  explosion  was  over, 
there  remained  no  ill  will,  on  either  side%  No  vituperation 
or  system  of  petty  persecution  was  kept  up  between  us.  Yes, 
sir,  it  is  true,  that  I  had  the  personal  difficulty,  which  the 
Senator  from  Kentucky  has  had  the  delicacy  to  bring  before 
the  Senate." 

He  then  referred  to  an  alleged  "adjourned  question 
of  veracity"  between  Clay  and  Jackson,  and  practi 
cally  called  him  a  liar,  which  stirred  Clay  to  anger. 
Clay  said  : 

"The  assertion  that  there  is  'an  adjourned  question  of 
veracity'  between  me  and  General  Jackson,  is,  whether  made 
by  man  or  master,  absolutely  false.  The  President  made  a 
certain  charge  against  me,  and  he  referred  to  witnesses  to 
prove  it.  I  denied  the  truth  of  the  charge.  He  called  upon 
his  witnesses  to  prove  it.  I  leave  it  to  the  country  to  say, 
whether  that  witness  sustained  the  truth  of  the  President' s 
allegation.  That  witness  is  now  on  his  passage  to  St.  Peters 
burg,  with  a  commission  in  his  pocket.  [Mr.  B.  here  said 
aloud,  in  his  place,  the  Mississippi  and  the  fisheries — Mr. 
Adams  and  the  fisheries — every  body  understands  it.  ]  Mr.  C. 
said,  I  do  not  yet  understand  the  Senator.  He  then 
remarked  upon  the  'prediction'  which  the  Senator  from 
Misouri  had  disclaimed.  Can  he,  said  Mr.  C.,  look  to  me, 
and  say  that  he  never  used  the  language  attributed  to  him  in 
the  placard  which  he  refers  to  ?  He  says,  Colonel  Lawless 
denies  that  he  used  the  words  in  the  State  of  Missouri.  Can 
you  look  me  in  the  face,  sir  [addressing  Mr.  B.],  and  say 
that  you  never  used  that  language  out  of  the  State  of  Mis 
souri  ?' ' 

BENTON  :  "I  look,  sir,  and  repeat  that  it  is  an  atrocious 
calumny  ;  and  I  will  pin  it  to  him  who  repeats  it  here. ' ' 

CLAY  :  « '  Then  I  declare  before  the  Senate  that  you  said 
to  me  the  very  words — ' ' 

[Mr.  B.  in  his  place,  while  Mr.  Clay  was  yet  speaking, 
several  times  loudly  repeated  the  word  "false,  false,  false."] 

CLAY:  "I  fling  back  the  charge  of  atrocious  calumny 
upon  the  Senator  from  Missouri." 

A  call  to  order  was  here  heard  from  several  Senators. 

THE  PRESIDENT  pro  tern.:  "The  Senator  from  Kentucky 
is  not  in  order,  and  must  take  his  seat. ' ' 

293 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

CLAY  :  ' '  Will  the  Chair  state  the  point  of  order  ?' ' 

The  Chair  said  it  could  enter  into  no  explanations  with 
the  Senator. 

CLAY  :  "I  shall  be  heard.  I  demand  to  know  what  point 
of  order  can  be  taken  against  me,  which  was  not  equally  ap 
plicable  to  the  Senator  from  Missouri. ' ' 

The  President  pro  tern,  stated  that  he  considered  the 
whole  discussion  as  out  of  order.  He  would  not  have  per-, 
mitted  it  had  he  been  in  the  chair  at  its  commencement. 

Mr.  Poindexter  said  he  was  in  the  chair  at  the  com 
mencement  of  the  discussion,  and  did  not  then  see  fit  to 
check  it.  But  he  was  now  of  the  opinion  that  it  was  not  in 
order. 

BENTON  :  "I  apologize  to  the  Senate  for  the  manner  in 
which  I  have  spoken  ;  but  not  to  the  Senator  from  Kentucky. ' ' 

CLAY  :  "To  the  Senate  I  also  offer  an  apology.  To  the 
Senator  from  Missouri  none." 

Many  of  those  who  read  this  book  will  recall  that 
this  sort  of  debate  was  very  common  a  generation 
ago  in  the  Senate,  after  the  Civil  War  had  stirred  up 
animosities,  but  fortunately  it  has  become  more  rare 
in  recent  times. 

A  much  more  serious  affair  occurred  during  Van 
Buren's  administration,  when  Clay  was  repenting  of 
the  part  he  had  taken  in  bringing  about  the  com 
promise  on  the  tariff.  He  had  dragooned  Calhoun 
into  accepting  his  bill,  and  both  were  ever  afterwards 
sorry.  From  that  time  forth  to  1850,  the  two  men 
were  scarcely  ever  in  unison.  In  1838  a  very  ex 
tended  debate  took  place  between  them,  in  which 
Clay  was  made  to  feel,  so  far  as  Calhoun  was  able, 
that  the  latter  was  the  winner.  Clay  had  made,  in 
the  course  of  some  remarks  concerning  Calhoun, 
the  following  very  accurate  statements  : 

"The  doctrine  of  the  Senator  in  1816  was,  as  he  now 
states  it,  that  bank  notes  being  in  fact  received  by  the  execu 
tive,  although  contrary  to  law,  it  was  constitutional  to  create 
a  Bank  of  the  United  States.  And  in  1834,  finding  that 
bank,  which  was  constitutional  in  its  inception,  but  had 

294 


SENATORIAL   COLLOQUIES 

become  unconstitutional  in  its  progress,  yet  in  existence,  it 
was  quite  constitutional  to  propose,  as  the  senator  did,  to 
continue  it  twelve  years  longer. 

"The  Senator  and  I  began  our  public  career  nearly 
together  ;  we  remained  together  throughout  the  war.  We 
agreed  as  to  a  Bank  of  the  United  States — as  to  a  protective 
tariff — as  to  internal  improvements  ;  and  lately  as  to  those 
arbitrary  and  violent  measures  which  characterized  the  ad 
ministration  of  General  Jackson.  No  two  men  ever  agreed 
better  together  in  respect  to  important  measures  of  public 
policy.  We  concur  in  nothing  now." 

Calhoun  could  not  deny  the  impeachment  in 
terms,  but  he  had  his  say  at  length,  during  which 
he  remarked  : 

1 '  The  absence  of  these  higher  qualities  of  the  mind  is  con 
spicuous  throughout  the  whole  course  of  the  Senator' s  [Clay*  s] 
public  life.  To  this  it  may  be  traced  that  he  prefers  the 
specious  to  the  solid,  and  the  plausible  to  the  true.  To  the 
same  cause,  combined  with  an  ardent  temperament,  it  is 
owing  that  we  ever  find  him  mounted  on  some  popular  and 
favorite  measure,  which  he  whips  along,  cheered  by  the  shouts 
of  the  multitude,  and  never  dismounts  till  he  has  ridden  it 
down.  Thus,  at  one  time,  we  find  him  mounted  on  the 
protective  system,  which  he  rode  down  ;  at  another,  on  in 
ternal  improvement ;  and  now  he  is  mounted  on  a  bank, 
which  will  surely  share  the  same  fate,  unless  those  who  are 
immediately  interested  shall  stop  him  in  his  headlong  career. 
It  is  the  fault  of  his  mind  to  seize  on  a  few  prominent  and  strik 
ing  advantages,  and  to  pursue  them  eagerly  without  looking 
to  consequences.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  the  protective  system, 
he  was  struck  with  the  advantages  of  manufactures  ;  and, 
believing  that  high  duties  was  the  proper  mode  of  protecting 
them,  he  pushed  forward  the  system,  without  seeing  that  he 
was  enriching  one  portion  of  the  country  at  the  expense  of 
the  other  ;  corrupting  the  one  and  alienating  the  other  ;  and, 
finally,  dividing  the  community  into  two  great  hostile  interests, 
which  terminated  in  the  overthrow  of  the  system  itself.  So, 
now,  he  looks  only  to  a  uniform  currency,  and  a  bank  as  the 
means  of  securing  it,  without  once  reflecting  how  far  the 
banking  system  has  progressed,  and  the  difficulties  that  im 
pede  its  farther  progress  ;  that  banking  and  politics  are 
running  together  to  their  mutual  destruction  ;  and  that  the 

295 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

only  possible  mode  of  saving  his  favorite  system  is  to  sepa 
rate  it  from  the  government. 

"To  the  defects  of  understanding,  which  the  Senator 
attributes  to  me,  I  make  no  reply.  It  is  for  others,  and  not 
me,  to  determine  the  portion  of  understanding  which  it  has 
pleased  the  Author  of  my  being  to  bestow  on  me.  It  is, 
however,  fortunate  for  me,  that  the  standard  by  which  I  shall 
be  judged  is  not  the  false,  prejudiced,  and,  as  I  have 
shown,  unfounded  opinion  which  the  Senator  has  expressed; 
but  my  acts." 

There  is  a  good  deal  more  of  this  which  it  might 
be  interesting  to  quote  if  space  permitted.  The 
climax  came  soon.  Calhoun  announced,  in  the 
course  of  a  three  days'  running  debate,  that  in  1833 
he  had  Clay  on  his  back.  This  was  an  astonishing 
statement,  considering  how  much  Clay  had  sacri 
ficed  to  make  the  peace  at  that  time.  It  made  him 
boil  with  indignation,  and  he  replied  : 

"The  Senator  from  South  Carolina  said  that  he  [Clay] 
was  flat  on  his  back,  and  that  he  was  my  master.  Sir,  I 
would  not  own  him  as  my  slave.  He  my  master  !  and  I 
compelled  by  him  !  And,  as  if  it  were  impossible  to  go  far 
enough  in  one  paragraph,  he  refers  to  certain  letters  of  his 
own  to  prove  that  I  was  flat  on  my  back  !  and,  that  I  was 
not  only  on  my  back,  but  another  Senator  and  the  President 
had  robbed  me  !  I  was  flat  on  my  back,  and  unable  to  do 
anything  but  what  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  permitted 
me  to  do  ! 

' '  Why,  sir,  I  gloried  in  my  strength,  and  was  compelled 
to  introduce  the  compromise  bill ;  and  compelled,  too,  by 
the  Senator,  not  in  consequence  of  the  weakness,  but  of  the 
strength,  of  my  position.  If  it  was  possible  for  the  Senator 
from  South  Carolina  to  introduce  one  paragraph  without 
showing  the  egotism  of  his  character,  he  would  not  now 
acknowledge  that  he  wrote  letters  home  to  show  that  he 
(Clay)  was  flat  on  his  back,  while  he  was  indebted  to  him  for 
that  measure  which  relieved  him  from  the  difficulties  in 
which  he  was  involved.  Now,  what  was  the  history  of  the 
case  ?  Flat  as  he  was  on  his  back,  he  was  able  to  produce 
that  compromise,  and  to  carry  it  through  the  Senate,  in 
opposition  to  the  most  strenuous  exertions  of  the  gentleman 

296 


SENATORIAL   COLLOQUIES 

who,  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  said,  had  supplanted 
him,  and  in  spite  of  his  determined  and  unceasing  opposi 
tion.  There  was  a  sort  of  necessity  operating  on  me  to 
compel  me  to  introduce  that  measure.  No  necessity  of  a 
personal  character  influenced  me ;  but  considerations  in 
volving  the  interests,  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  whole 
country,  as  well  as  of  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  directed 
me  in  the  course  pursued. ' ' 

This  was  true  enough,  but  the  worst  of  it  all  was 
that  Clay  was  made  to  feel  that  he  had  sacrificed 
conscience  and  patriotism  for  the  sake  of  the  Union, 
only  to  find  that  there  had  been  no  compromise, 
and  that  he  was  accused  of  being  guilty  of  all  the 
crimes  in  the  political  calendar.  After  this  the 
relations  between  Clay  and  Calhoun  were  strained 
until  near  the  end  of  their  lives. 

A  few  years  later,  during  Tyler's  administration, 
they  came  into  angry  debate  again  over  the  "  fiscal 
bill,"  as  Clay's  new  national  bank  bill  was  called. 
Clay  was  growing  more  imperious,  not  only  because 
he  was  the  leader  and  soul  of  the  Whig  party,  but 
because  he  felt  there  were  Senators  striving  for 
delay  in  favor  of  Tyler's  schemes.  All  sorts  of 
amendments  were  offered  to  the  fiscal  bill,  and  Clay 
got  tired  and  expressed  his  views  in  terms  that 
admitted  of  no  mistake,  and  there  was  talk  of  a 
resolution  introducing  the  previous  question  or 
"  gag  law,"  as  it  was  then  termed  in  the  Senate. 
Calhoun  objected  to  Clay's  bill  because  it  reserved 
a  large  block  of  stock  for  the  government,  as  in 
former  cases,  and  this  he  called  plunder  and  accused 
Clay  of  insidious  motives  in  the  bill,  whereupon  the 
following  colloquy  took  place  : 

CLAY  :  "I  said  no  such  thing,  sir  ;  I  did  not  say  anything 
about  the  -motives  of  Senators. 

Calhoun  said  he  understood  the  Senator's  meaning  to  be 
that  the  motives  of  the  opposition  were  factious  and  frivolous. 

297 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

CLAY  :   "I  said  no  such  thing,  sir." 

CALHOUN  :   "It  was  so  understood." 

CLAY:    "No,  sir;  no,  sir." 

CALHOUN  :  "  Yes,  sir,  yes  ;  it  could  be  understood  in  no 
other  way." 

CLAY:  "What  I  did  say  was,  that  the  effect  of  such 
amendments,  and  of  consuming  time  in  debating  them, 
would  be  a  waste  of  that  time  from  the  business  of  the  ses 
sion  ;  and,  consequently,  would  produce  unnecessary  delay 
and  embarrassment.  I  said  nothing  of  motives — I  only 
spoke  of  the  practical  effect  and  result." 

Calhoun  said  he  understood  it  had  been  repeated  for  the 
second  time  that  there  could  be  no  other  motive  or  object 
entertained  by  the  Senators  in  the  opposition,  in  making 
amendments  and  speeches  on  this  bill,  than  to  embarrass 
the  majority  by  frivolous  and  vexatious  delay. 

Clay  insisted  that  he  made  use  of  no  assertions  as  to 
motives. 

CALHOUN  :  "If  the  Senator  means  to  say  that  he  does 
not  accuse  this  side  of  the  House  of  bringing  forward  propo 
sitions  for  the  sake  of  delay,  he  wished  to  understand  him." 

CLAY  :   "I  intended  that." 

However,  this  quarrel  brought  about  no  good 
result,  as  the  bill  was  vetoed  by  Tyler.  In  the  de 
bate,  Benton  dared  Clay  to  bring  on  his  "  gag  law," 
and  soon  the  great  Kentuckian  was  engaged  in  an 
encounter  with  Senator  King,  of  Alabama.  Clay 
was  in  a  hurry  for  some  action,  and  it  may  be  said 
that  at  this  time  there  was  the  greatest  exhibition 
of  filibustering  known  up  to  that  time  in  the  Senate, 
which  was  beginning  to  lose  its  dignity  under  the 
heat  of  partisan  debate.  When  Clay  threatened 
once  more  to  enforce  closure,  the  following  col 
loquy  occurred  : 

Mr.  King  said  the  Senator  from  Kentucky  complained  of 
three  weeks  and  a  half  having  been  lost  in  amendments  to 
his  bill.  Was  not  the  Senator  aware  that  it  was  himself  and 
his  friends  had  consumed  most  of  that  time  ?  But  now  that 
the  minority  had  to  take  it  up,  the  Senate  is  told  there  must 
be  a  gag  law.  Did  he  understand  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  the  Senator  to  introduce  that  measure  ? 

298 


SENATORIAL   COLLOQUIES 

CLAY:   "I  will,  sir;  I  will  !" 

KING:  "I  tell  the  Senator,  then,  that  he  may  make  his 
arrangements  at  his  boarding-house  for  the  winter." 

CLAY  :   "  Very  well,  sir." 

Mr.  King  was  truly  sorry  to  see  the  honorable  senator  so 
far  forgetting  what  is  due  to  the  Senate,  as  to  talk  of  coerc 
ing  it  by  any  possible  abridgment  of  its  free  action.  The 
freedom  of  debate  had  never  yet  been  abridged  in  that  body, 
since  the  foundation  of  this  government.  Was  it  fit  or 
becoming,  after  fifty  years  of  unrestrained  liberty,  to  threaten 
it  with  a  gag  law  ?  He  could  tell  the  Senator  that,  peaceable 
a  man  as  he  (Mr.  King)  was,  whenever  it  was  attempted  to 
violate  that  sanctuary,  he,  for  one,  would  resist  that  attempt 
even  unto  the  death. 

However  mild  this  may  seem,  in  view  of  later 
events  of  a  similar  though  more  serious  character, 
it  may  be  said  that  it  created  an  extraordinary 
sensation,  and  gave  to  Clay  the  title  of  Party  Dic 
tator,  which  he  resented  with  great  warmth,  though, 
in  a  proper  sense,  the  appellation  was  correct. 

The  last  controversy  of  the  session  occurred  with 
Senator  Archer,  of  Virginia,  who  defended  Tyler 
against  the  aspersions  of  Clay.  Clay,  disappointed 
at  the  result  of  his  programme's  defeat  and  bitter 
against  Tyler,  yet  preserved  the  decorum  of  debate 
until  taunted  to  the  last  degree.  Archer  had  ac 
cused  Clay  of  making  statements  which  were  not 
made  by  him.  Clay  had  been  careful  in  all  such 
debate  to  use  the  language  of  alleged  friends  of 
Tyler,  not  only  because  that  was  better  politics,  but 
because  it  was  a  deeper  stab  at  the  man,  while  at 
the  same  time  it  did  not  make  Clay  out  an  ingrate. 
But  though  Clay  was  careful  enough  of  the  feelings 
of  Tyler  when  possible,  he  complained  that  Tyler 
never  had  any  kind  feelings  towards  himself.  The 
debate  arose  over  the  fact  that  whereas  Tyler  had 
a  cabinet,  he  always  acted  in  direct  opposition  to  its 
views  and  accepted  the  dictum  of  a  lot  of  unauthor 
ized  persons.  Archer  had  the  difficult  task  of  de- 

299 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

fending  such  a  condition  of  affairs,  and  failed  miser 
ably,  according  to  the  reported  colloquy, — 

CLAY  :  "I  repeat  it  here,  in  the  face  of  the  country,  that 
there  are  persons  who  call  themselves,  par  excellence,  the 
friends  of  John  Tyler,  and  yet  oppose  all  the  leading  meas 
ures  of  the  administration  of  John  Tyler.  I  will  say  that  the 
gentleman  himself  is  not  of  that  cabal,  and  that  his  colleague 
is  not.  Further  than  that,  this  deponent  saith  not,  and 
will  not  say." 

ARCHER:  "The  gentleman  has  not  adverted  to  the  ex 
treme  harshness  of  the  language  he  employed  when  he  was 
first  up,  and  he  would  appeal  to  gentlemen  present  for  the 
correctness  of  the  version  he  (Archer)  had  given  of  it.  The 
gentleman  said  there  was  a  cabal  formed — a  vile  kitchen 
cabinet — low  and  infamous,  who  surrounded  the  President 
and  instigated  him  to  the  course  he  had  taken.  That  was 
the  language  employed  by  the  honorable  Senator.  Now 
suppose  language  such  as  this  had  been  used  in  the  other 
branch  of  the  national  legislature,  which  might  be  supposed 
to  refer  to  him  (Archer)  where  he  had  not  an  opportunity  of 
defending  himself;  what  would  be  the  course  of  his  col 
leagues  there  ?  The  course  of  those  high-minded  and  hon 
orable  men  there  towards  him,  would  be  similar  to  that  he 
had  taken  in  regard  to  them. ' ' 

CLAY  :  ' '  Mr.  President,  did  I  say  one  word  about  the 
colleagues  of  the  gentleman?  I  said  there  was  a  cabal 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  breaking  down  the  present  Cabi 
net,  and  that  that  cabal  did  not  number  a  corporal' s  guard  ; 
but  I  did  not  say  who  that  cabal  was,  and  do  not  mean  to  be 
interrogated.  Any  member  on  this  floor  has  a  right  to  ask 
me  if  I  alluded  to  him  ;  but  nobody  else  has.  I  spoke  of 
rumor  only." 

Mr.  Archer  said  a  few  words,  but  he  was  not  heard  dis 
tinctly  enough  to  be  reported. 

CLAY  :  "I  said  no  such  thing.  I  said  there  was  a 
rumor — that  public  fame  had  stated  that  there  was  a  cabal 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  removing  the  Cabinet,  and  I  ask 
the  gentleman  if  he  has  not  heard  of  that  rumor  ?' ' 

The  expression  x  "  corporal's  guard "  stuck  to 
Tyler  throughout  his  administration,  and  neither 
Tyler  nor  Clay  became  President  in  1845,  as  each 
had  hoped. 

300 


SENATORIAL   COLLOQUIES 

These  exhibitions  of  temper  and  temperament  in 
the  forum  of  debate  give  a  definite  view  of  one 
side  of  Clay's  character.  He  was  imperious,  irri 
table  at  delay,  and  apt  to  become  bitter  during 
the  heat  of  debate.  One  might  suppose  from  his 
wrangles  that  he  was  a  quarrelsome  man.  In  fact,  he 
was  generally  the  soul  of  good  nature,  and,  in  most 
instances,  the  amende  honorable  after  a  squabble  was 
soon  made.  Against  Webster,  Calhoun,  and  Benton 
did  he  long  harbor  ill  feeling,  but  with  all  of  them 
he  became  reconciled  before  the  end.  None  loved 
him  the  less  for  these  ardent  displays  of  his  emotions. 

On  another  occasion  he  engaged  in  a  lively  con 
troversy  with  Senator  James  Buchanan,  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  who  had  formerly  been  his  friend,  but  whom 
he  long  believed  to  be  the  real  author  of  the  Kremer 
letter.  In  the  colloquy  that  ensued  on  this  occa 
sion,  Clay,  for  the  only  time  on  record,  made  some 
personal  remarks  offensive  to  his  opponent.  Attack 
ing  Buchanan,  that  Senator  replied  that  he  was 
mistaken  in  supposing  that  he  (Buchanan)  was 
looking  at  him  (Clay).  To  this  Clay  replied  that 
owing  to  the  gentleman's  roving  eye — referring  to 
his  strabismus — it  was  impossible  to  tell  what  he 
was  looking  at 

The  controversy  involved  a  number  of  consider 
ations,  in  which  Clay's  friends  thought  he  had  gone 
too  far,  and  one  of  them  remonstrated  with  him  for 
allowing  his  temper  to  get  the  best  of  him.  All  that 
Clay  would  say  was, — 

"  I  don't  like  that  man  ;  he  writes  letters." 

Thereupon  he  took  some  peppermint  candy  out 
of  his  pocket  and  proceeded  to  munch  it  until  his 
anger  was  gone  and  the  entente  cordiale  was  re 
stored.  Clay  was  very  fond  of  this  sort  of  candy 
and  considered  it  the  best  possible  antidote  for  a 
bad  spell  of  temper. 

301 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Clay  wore  a  seven  and  five-eighths  hat,  the  same  as 
Mr.  Webster  ;  and  on  one  occasion  when  he  went  to 
the  cloak-room,  he  found  that  some  one  had  appro 
priated  his  head-covering  and  left  in  its  place  a  hat 
of  about  six  and  one-half  inches  in  size.  This  put 
him  somewhat  out  of  humor,  as  to  wear  such  a 
small  hat  would  look  ridiculous.  Finding  no  substi 
tute  he  walked  down  Capitol  Hill  like  a  Roman 
Senator,  to  the  intense  delight  of  the  populace.  The 
next  day  his  hat  was  restored  by  the  borrower,  who 
offered  an  apology  by  saying  that  he  regretted  very 
much  that  Clay  should  have  taken  his  hat,  as  he  was 
obliged  to  walk  down  the  Avenue  looking  like  a 
candle  with  an  extinguisher  on.  At  first  Clay  was 
inclined  to  resent  the  assumption  that  he  was  the 
one  at  fault,  but  looking  at  the  diminutive  Senator, 
who  belonged  to  the  opposition,  he  remarked  : 

"Don't  you  mean  distinguisher?" 

And  that  was  all. 


302 


XXII 

PUBLIC    LAND    DISTRIBUTION     AND     OTHER    POLICIES 

ONE  important  feature  of  Clay's  American  system 
was  the  distribution  of  the  surplus  of  funds  arising 
from  sales  of  public  lands  to  the  various  States 
according  to  population.  To  this  policy  he  adhered 
with  a  pertinacity  that  is  astonishing  in  view  of  the 
unfortunate  result  of  a  single  experiment  in  that  di 
rection.  We  are  now  become  so  great  a  nation,  the 
States  are  as  a  rule  so  prosperous,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  remember  that  seventy-five  years  ago  a  very  dif 
ferent  situation  existed.  The  American  people  have 
always  been  enterprising,  and  to  an  extent  visionary. 
In  1830  there  were,  perhaps,  relatively  more  wild 
schemes  for  getting  rich  than  there  have  been  at  any 
time  since.  Steamboats  had  begun  to  swarm  the 
rivers,  especially  in  the  West.  The  Erie  Canal  had 
almost  made  a  revolution  in  our  agricultural  and 
commercial  system,  while  the  invention  of  the  rail 
way,  if  it  may  be  so  termed,  seemed  to  open  up 
wonderful  vistas  to  the  imagination. 

Clay  ever  asserted  that  his  sole  aim  in  legislation 
concerning  land  was  to  accomplish  the  greatest  good 
for  the  greatest  number.  When  accused  of  being 
against  the  settler,  he  said  that  he  only  wanted  to 
get  the  real  farmer  onto  the  land,  and  would  be  will 
ing  to  make  any  rational  sacrifice  to  accomplish  this 
purpose,  but  he  was  convinced  that  speculators 
would  alone  have  the  advantage. 

On  one  occasion,  Benton  came  to  Clay  in  high 
dudgeon  and  said  that  the  latter  was  opposing  the 
interests  of  the  sturdy  yeoman.  This  aroused  Clay's 

303 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

ire,  who  remarked  that  he  (Clay)  was  ploughing  corn 
before  Benton  was  born.  He  had,  however,  found 
that  many  of  those  who  were  blatant  advocates  of  the 
poor  were  not  accustomed  to  delving  into  the  soil. 
This  was  bitter  enough,  but  when  Benton  came  out 
in  favor  of  practically  free  lands  for  the  settlers,  Clay 
pointed  out  that  it  was  very  good  of  Missouri  to 
ask  this  benefice  of  the  government,  but,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  lands  had  been  purchased  by  the  treas 
ure  of  the  whole  Union,  and  it  was  absurd  to  say 
that  they  should  be  thrown  away  on  those  who 
might  not  be  deserving. 

There  is  a  story  that,  after  one  of  these  debates, 
Benton  and  Clay  met  and  were  at  first  inclined  to 
be  friendly,  but  finally  quarreled  over  the  seventh 
cause, — in  fact,  the  lie  direct, — and  for  years  were 
not  on  speaking  terms,  though  according  to  Shake 
spearean  precedent  they  did  not  draw  swords.  Their 
last  reconciliation  was  in  1850,  and  was  not  entirely 
complete. 

The  great  asset  of  the  country  was  its  rich  land. 
Most  of  the  original  thirteen  States  retained  their 
own  lands  and  got  some  more,  but  the  Great  North 
west  Territory,  the  Southwestern  Territory  adjoining 
Georgia,  and  the  Louisiana  Territory  were  national 
domain.  These  lands  had  filled  up  with  settlers 
rather  slowly  after  the  war  of  1812  until  about  1825, 
when  the  expansion  of  the  population  began  at  an 
enormous  rate,  and  continued  for  ten  years.  The 
government  abandoned  its  former  plan  of  selling 
the  land  to  great  corporations  or  associations,  and 
dealt  direct  with  the  settler.  The  price  was  made 
low,  and,  eventually,  preference  was  given  to  actual 
settlers  who  had  the  right  to  "preempt"  the  soil. 
Clay,  with  his  rather  imperial  notions,  felt  that  the 
government  was  wrong  in  selling  such  valuable  lands 
so  cheaply.  Benton  was  continually  striving  to  get 

304 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

better  terms  for  the  settlers  and,  in  the  end,  suc 
ceeded,  though  usually  against  the  vote  of  Clay.  It 
was  the  proposition  of  Senator  Foot,  of  Connecticut, 
to  restrict  the  sale  of  public  lands  to  those  in  the 
market  and  dismiss  the  public  surveyors  that  brought 
on  the  famous  forensic  duel  between  Hayne  and 
Webster  which  had  such  mighty  consequences. 
Clay  was  not  in  the  Senate  at  that  time,  but  came 
back  soon  afterwards,  and  announced  as  one  of  his 
party  planks,  as  we  would  say  nowadays,  that  the 
surplus  arising  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  should 
be  divided  among  the  States. 

This  proposition  had  long  been  considered,  but 
while  there  was  a  heavy  public  debt  it  was  academic 
only.  Now  that  the  public  debt  was  paid  off,  or 
soon  to  be,  it  was  evident  that  the  surplus  revenue 
must  be  disposed  of  in  some  fashion.  Some  states 
men  wanted  the  tariff  reduced,  which,  of  course, 
did  not  suit  Clay.  Some,  like  Benton,  wished  enor 
mous  outlays  for  coast  defenses.  There  was  great 
difficulty  in  the  minds  of  many  on  the  subject. 
Some  thought  it  unconstitutional  to  give  the  money 
to  the  States  and  extravagant  to  waste  it  on  fortifi 
cations.  It  was  only  cupidity  that  made  it  possible, 
eventually,  to  get  a  majority  for  any  proposition 
whatever. 

Once,  when  Clay  was  making  an  impassioned 
speech,  in  which  he  declared  that  the  distribution  of 
the  land  surplus  was  a  measure  of  the  highest  im 
portance  and  was  showing  how  the  older  States 
would  profit  by  the  plan,  a  Senator  asked  him  to 
explain  how  it  was  that  the  newer  States  would 
benefit.  Clay  answered  with  scorn  that  they  would 
benefit  by  having  such  an  increased  population  that 
there  would  be  Senators  of  experience  elected  by  men 
able  to  buy  the  lands.  There  was  no  rejoinder. 

Clay's  first  effort  at  land  distribution  in  1832  failed, 
2o  305 


THE   TRUE   HENRY    CLAY 

as  Congress  took  no  action  whatever.  In  1833 
it  was  an  essential  part  of  the  tariff  compromise 
that  the  land  distribution  policy  should  accompany  it, 
as  this  would  give  some  compensation  to  the  States 
where  manufacturing  was  increasing.  Jackson  was 
glad  enough  to  see  the  compromise  bill  pass,  as  he 
had  no  desire  to  send  an  army  to  South  Carolina  to 
fight,  but  he  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  land  distribu 
tion  act.  He  received  both  bills  in  his  room  at  the 
Capitol  within  a  few  hours  of  the  end  of  the  session. 
Jackson  sent  Benton  to  learn  whether  a  veto  would 
be  upheld  if  sent  in  at  once.  Benton  found  the 
situation  so  unpromising  that  Jackson  neither  signed 
nor  vetoed  the  bill,  but  took  no  action  whatever. 
This  was  the  first  "  pocket  veto"  on  record,  and  it 
created  a  sensation.  Not  only  was  the  means  em 
ployed  declared  revolutionary  and  unconstitutional, 
but  Clay  was  enraged  because  it  omitted  an  impor 
tant  part  of  the  compromise.  Clay  even  went  so  far 
as  to  insinuate  that  the  bill  was  actually  a  law  with 
out  the  President's  signature,  as  provided  for  by  the 
Constitution,  but  no  effort  was  ever  made  to  enforce 
such  a  construction.  It  was  not  until  1836  that 
Clay  found  it  possible  to  carry  out  his  long-cherished 
plan.  The  surplus  question  was  now  an  important 
one,  as  the  treasury  was  overflowing,  and  so  great 
were  the  sales  of  lands  that  in  a  few  years  the  re 
ceipts  equalled  those  in  all  previous  years  from  the 
establishment  of  the  government.  In  his  first  set 
speech  on  the  subject  made  in  1833,  when,  as  he 
claimed,  he  was  cheated  by  Jackson,  Clay  made 
the  following  statement : 

' '  Long  after  we  shall  cease  to  be  agitated  by  the  tariff, 
ages  after  our  manufactures  shall  have  acquired  a  stability 
and  perfection,  which  will  enable  them  successfully  to  cope 
with  the  manufactures  of  any  other  country,  the  public  lands 
will  remain  a  subject  of  deep  and  enduring  interest." 

306 


/        <*">"      * 


*"     / 


"<*'/i   *~j?<#  *-•*£-,.       £j 
' 


THIS    IS   THE   ONLY    MEMORANDUM    IN    EXISTENCE    USED    BY    HENRY    CLAY    IN 

SPEAKING.       ORDINARILY    HE   USED    NO    NOTES    AT   ALL.       THE    SPEECH 

TO    WHICH    THESE    NOTES    RKFER    WAS    MADE    IN    THE 

SENATE   JANUARY    28    AND    2Q,     184! 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Kentucky.     Photographed 
especially  for  this  volume. ) 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

It  is  evident  that  Clay  had  not  the  gift  of 
prophecy.  In  this  year  (1904)  there  are  few  public 
lands  left  in  the  market  which  are  available  for 
agriculture,  except  by  means  of  irrigation,  while  it 
cannot  be  claimed  that  the  country  has  ceased  to  be 
agitated  by  the  tariff.  One  of  Clay's  principal  argu-  ~" 
ments  in  favor  of  the  distribution  was  that  it  would 
cement  the  States  closer  together.  In  that  day  it 
was  common  to  consider  the  Union  an  experiment, 
and  secession  or  separation  were  continually  talked 
of.  Clay  was  for  the  Union,  but  he  had  frequent 
doubts  as  to  whether  it  could  be  preserved,  and 
was  ever  seeking  plasters  to  heal  up  wounds.  He 
said  : 

"  If  we  appropriate,  for  a  limited  time,  the  proceeds  of  that 
great  resource  (the  public  lands)  among  the  several  States,  for 
the  important  objects  which  have  been  enumerated,  a  new 
and  powerful  bond  of  affection  and  of  interest  will  be  added. 
The  States  will  feel  and  recognize  the  operation  of  the  gen 
eral  government,  not  merely  in  power  and  burdens,  but  in 
benefactions  and  blessings.  And  the  general  government  in 
its  turn  will  feel  from  the  expenditure  of  money  which  it  dis- 
spenses  to  the  States,  the  benefits  of  moral  and  intellectual 
improvement  of  the  people,  of  greater  facility  in  social  and 
commercial  intercourse,  and  of  the  purification  of  the  popu 
lation  of  our  country,  themselves  the  best  parental  source 
of  national  character,  national  union  and  national  greatness. ' ' 

In  other  words  Clay  was  going  to  bribe  the  States 
into  contentment.  That  the  distribution  had  no 
such  effects  as  he  predicted,  is  well  known. 

The  antipathy  between  Clay  and  Jackson  which 
reached  its  height  about  this  time,  and  which  had 
an  issue  in  the  question  of  land  distribution,  was 
one  of  the  unpleasant  features  of  life  to  Clay,  for 
he  had  not  desired  nor  deserved  such  treatment  as 
he  received.  While  Speaker,  he  met  Jackson  at  a 
tavern  in  Tennessee,  and  approached  with  out 
stretched  hand.  Jackson  brushed  by  with  barely 

3°7 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY      . 

a  nod,  because  of  the  speech  Clay  had  made  on  the 
Florida  troubles.  Afterwards  Jackson  sent  friends 
to  explain  that  the  slight  was  because  he  "  was  suf 
fering  from  an  indisposition,"  but  it  did  not  mollify 
Clay  until  Jackson  had  made  the  amende  honor 
able  at  the  time  he  wanted  Clay's  support  in  1825. 
Then  he  became  bitter  again,  and  for  some  unknown 
reason  accused  Clay  of  uttering  scandals  about  his 
(Jackson's)  dead  wife.  This  was  a  calumny,  for 
Clay  was  a  knight  errant  towards  women.  Then 
Jackson  accused  Clay  of  circulating  the  scandals 
about  Mrs.  Eaton.  In  this  he  also  was  wrong. 
These  scandals  were  notorious,  and,  of  all  men, 
Jackson  was  the  last  who  should  have  made  such  a 
charge,  as  he  had  lived  at  the  O'Neill  tavern,  and 
must  have  known  that  they  were  not  manufactured 
for  political  purposes. 

The  result,  however,  was  that  Benton,  who  had 
the  ear  of  Jackson,  was  able  to  keep  back  the  land 
distribution  act  for  years.  The  feud  between  these 
two  on  this  issue  became  stronger  when  Clay  said  that 
Benton's  plan  was  "a  grant  of  the  property  of  the 
whole  people  to  a  small  part  of  the  people."  Jack 
son  ordered  that  this  be  made  a  campaign  slogan, 
but  found  he  could  not  make  it  such  when  he  had 
to  sign  the  distribution  bill  to  save  Van  Buren. 

When  he  came  to  the  final  effort,  in  the  winter  of 
1 83  5-36,  Clay  still  found  much  difficulty.  There  was 
scarcely  a  member  who  did  not  want  the  largess  of 
the  government,  but  there  were  so  many  who  had 
taken  ground  on  cognate  subjects,  in  opposition  to 
the  principle,  that  they  knew  not  what  to  do.  One 
Senator  is  said  to  have  approached  Clay  and  asked 
how  he  could  find  a  balm  for  his  political  conscience 
under  the  circumstances.  Clay  started  to  give  his 
familiar  arguments,  but  was  stopped  by  the  state 
ment  that  the  member  only  wanted  some  plea  which 

308 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

he  could  give  for  being  inconsistent,  as  his  re-elec 
tion  was  at  hand.  Clay  looked  at  him  a  moment 
and  replied  : 

"Is  it  your  constitutional  view,  or  fear  of  defeat,  that  is 
troubling  you  ?' ' 

' '  I  want  to  be  re-elected, ' '   was  the  reply. 

Said  Clay  : 

' '  Your  State  is  heavily  in  debt,  and  this  bill  will  bring  you 
over  a  million  dollars.  Don't  you  think  that  a  man  who  can 
take  home  a  million  dollars  has  a  better  argument  for  re 
election  than  if  he  produces  a  certificate  that  he  has  never 
changed  his  mind  on  any  subject  ?" 

The  Senator  voted  for  the  bill. 

Others  could  not  be  brought  around  in  any  such 
fashion,  and  for  a  long  time  the  fate  of  the  bill 
seemed  doubtful.  Clay's  first  set  speech  on  the 
measure  which  he  introduced  was  briefer  than  the 
former  one,  and  did  not  go  deeply  into  the  par 
ticular  merits  of  the  controversy,  except  to  laud  the 
general  advantage  of  giving  the  States  so  much 
money  that  everyone  would  necessarily  be  happy. 
At  the  close  he  indulged  in  the  pathetic  with  little 
relevancy  to  the  context.  He  said  that  this  bill 
was  not  only  dear  to  his  heart,  but  he  believed  it 
was  the  most  important  ever  offered  for  the  preser 
vation  of  the  Union,  and  that  its  benefits  would  be 
incalculable.  Once  more  he  announced  that  he 
expected  to  retire  from  public  life,  and  assured  his 
hearers  that  he  would  carry  with  him  no  regrets  and 
no  reproaches,  concluding  as  follows  : 

"  When  I  look  back  on  my  humble  origin,  left  an  orphan 
too  young  to  have  been  conscious  of  a  father's  smiles  and 
caresses,  with  a  widowed  mother,  surrounded  by  a  numerous 
offspring,  in  the  midst  of  pecuniary  embarrassments,  without 
a  regular  education,  without  fortune,  without  friends,  without 

309 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

patrons,  I  have  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  my  public  career. 
I  ought  to  be  thankful  for  the  high  places  and  honors  to 
which  I  have  been  called  by  the  favor  and  partiality  of  my 
countrymen,  and  I  am  thankful  and  grateful.  And  I  shall 
take  with  me  the  pleasing  consciousness  that,  in  whatever 
station  I  have  been  placed,  I  have  earnestly  and  honestly 
labored  to  justify  their  confidence  by  a  faithful,  zealous  dis 
charge  of  my  public  duties." 

Here  he  once  more  exaggerated  his  early  strug 
gles,  since  no  man  ever  had  more  friends  and 
patrons  in  youth  than  he.  But  the  recital  is  said 
to  have  been  affecting,  though  it  seems  far  removed 
from  any  connection  with  the  public  lands. 

Gradually  it  was  found  that  the  bill  could  easily 
pass  both  Houses  if  only  some  way  could  be  found 
to  salve  the  consciences  of  the  strict  construction 
Democrats.  It  was  found,  and  the  trick  was  so  ap 
parent  that  it  seems  strange  able  men  would  be 
willing  to  deceive  themselves  by  it,  since  no  one 
else  was  for  a  moment  in  doubt.  The  trick  was 
nothing  less  than  that  of  authorizing  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  to  "  deposit"  with  the  various  States 
all  the  money  in  the  treasury  above  five  million  dol 
lars,  on  the  first  of  the  year  1837,  in  four  quarterly 
instalments.  The  bill  provided  that  Congress  might 
at  any  time  recall  the  money,  but  it  was  considered 
a  huge  joke,  as  no  State  would  have  taken  the 
money  under  such  terms,  and  it  was  well  known  and 
openly  asserted  that  Congress  would  never  get  a 
dollar  back,  not  even  if  it  should  happen  to  ask 
for  it. 

This  remarkable  invention  resulted  in  the  passage 
of  the  bill  by  large  majorities,  Benton  being  its  chief 
opponent  in  the  Senate.  Jackson  was  sorely  per 
plexed  when  he  received  the  measure.  He  consid 
ered  it  iniquitous  and  wanted  to  veto  it,  but  was  fear 
ful  that  this  would  injure  Van  Buren's  chances  of 
election.  He  signed  the  bill,  and  is  said  to  have 

310 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

looked  upon  it  as  the  sole  regrettable  act  of  his 
public  career. 

Clay's  joy  over  this  triumph  was  short  lived.  He 
was  set  aside  as  a  candidate  against  Van  Buren,  and 
several  favorite  sons  were  put  in  nomination  in  the 
hope  of  throwing  the  contest  into  the  House  of 
Representatives  once  more.  This  failed,  and  Van 
Buren  was  triumphantly  elected.  The  good  luck 
of  Jackson  did  not  desert  him.  He  paid  the  first 
instalment  of  about  nine  million  five  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars  in  coin  promptly,  and  went  out  of 
office  unconscious  of  the  approaching  storm.  When 
the  first  of  April  came  round,  the  portents  of  evil 
were  already  apparent,  but  the  payment  was  made 
in  lawful  money,  though  with  considerable  difficulty. 
The  country  was  beginning  to  suffer  from  depres 
sion  and  the  panic  was  at  hand.  Under  such  cir 
cumstances  the  withdrawal  of  nineteen  millions  of 
dollars  had  a  bad  effect  on  business,  the  more  so 
because  it  did  not  readily  get  into  the  proper  chan 
nels  again.  The  third  payment  was  made  largely 
in  State  bank  notes,  including  some  of  doubtful 
value,  and  the  fourth  was  never  made  at  all.  The 
panic  had  burst  upon  the  land,  many  of  the  banks 
which  had  Federal  money  failed,  and,  so  far  from 
being  any  surplus,  there  was  soon  not  enough  in  the 
treasury  for  ordinary  expenses. 

The  States  received  little  benefit  from  this  largess, 
and  most  of  them  were  positively  harmed.  Largely 
as  a  result  of  this  "  deposit,"  some  States  entered 
upon  a  career  of  extravagance  which  in  the  end 
compelled  them  to  repudiate  their  bonds.  So  far 
from  "  cementing  national  spirit,"  as  Clay  hoped, 
the  result  gave  rise  to  innumerable  quarrels,  while 
American  credit  was  injured  abroad,  and  did  not 
quickly  revive.  Some  of  the  States  gave  the  money 
to  the  various  counties  for  improvements.  Some 

3" 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

distributed  it  pro  rata  among  the  population.  Others 
used  it  as  the  basis  of  an  enormous  expenditure  for 
railways,  canals,  and  turnpikes,  which  the  govern 
ment  was  expected  to  pay  for.  The  crash  came 
soon,  but  not  until  many  enormous  public  works 
had  been  undertaken,  only  soon  to  be  either  aban 
doned  entirely  or  cut  down  and  postponed.  In 
deed,  the  result  was  as  far  as  possible  from  what 
Clay  had  expected.  It  is  true  that  it  came  at  a 
critical  time,  and  distribution  might  have  been  hap 
pier  under  other  conditions  ;  but  the  bill  was  vicious 
in  principle,  and  never  could  have  been  very  satis 
factory  considering  the  cupidity  of  human  nature 
and  the  tendency  of  the  American  to  speculate 
wildly  at  every  opportunity. 

Notwithstanding  the  treasury  was  empty  and  the 
government  had  to  borrow  money,  there  was  great 
wrath  over  the  failure  to  pay  the  fourth  instalment, 
and  Clay  was  insistent  that  it  be  paid  ;  but  this  was 
for  effect,  since  for  years  the  government  lived  more 
or  less  on  borrowed  money. 

When  Clay  came  to  the  front  as  absolute  Whig 
leader  in  the  Tyler  administration,  he  once  more  had 
distribution  on  his  programme,  but  met  with  constant 
opposition.  Finally,  a  compromise  was  effected  by 
which  there  was  to  be  no  land  surplus  distribution 
until  the  average  tariff  duties  were  less  than  twenty 
per  cent,  something  that  has  not  yet  occurred. 
Clay  soon  left  the  Senate,  and  bothered  no  more 
with  the  scheme  which  had  seemed  so  dear  to  him. 
This  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  many  disappoint 
ments  of  his  career.  The  nearly  thirty  millions 
which  were  paid  out  still  stand  on  the  books  of  the 
government  against  the  States,  and  undoubtedly 
could  be  called  for  at  any  time,  and  surely  never 
will  be. 

Clay  took  calmly  the  bitter  reproaches  heaped  on 
312 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

him.  He  felt  that  he  had  failed  under  peculiar  cir 
cumstances,  and  that  Jackson  was  responsible  for  it 
because  of  the  veto  of  the  bank  and  the  issuance  of 
the  Specie  Circular.  Nothing  is  more  astonishing 
in  our  whole  history  than  the  way  in  which  these 
two  men  came  into  constant  conflict,  with  Clay 
almost  invariably  the  loser.  In  equipment,  Clay  was 
in  almost  every  respect  Jackson's  superior.  The 
latter  had  one  quality  that  Clay  did  not  possess,  that 
of  unalterable  determination.  It  would  be  idle  to 
say  that  Clay  had  not  his  bad  points  and  Jackson 
his  good  ones.  It  would  be  difficult  to  make  a 
proper  comparison  between  the  two  men  as  states 
men  that  would  be  just.  The  fact  is  that  Clay's 
career  was  one  long  series  of  public  and  private 
disappointments,  while  Jackson's  was  a  train  of  suc 
cesses.  One  can  only  wish  that  the  good  qualities 
of  both  could  have  been  combined  in  one.  There 
would  have  been  a  statesman,  indeed  ! 

Of  cognate  interest  is  Clay's  position  with  regard 
to  the  Indians  and  their  lands.  At  a  time  when 
many  statesmen,  and  a  majority  of  legislators, 
seemed  to  think  the  aborigine  was  lawful  prey  of 
the  white  man,  Clay  stands  out  prominently  as  an 
advocate  of  securing  to  the  Indian  every  right  in 
land  and  location  and  treaty  stipulation  that  was  pos 
sible.  It  can  be  said  that  in  every  piece  of  legisla 
tion  affecting  them,  Clay  took  advanced  ground 
along  with  Benton.  These  two  great  representa 
tives  of  the  West  felt  that  there  was  such  a  differ 
ence  between  the  civilizations  of  the  Caucasian  and 
red  races  that  an  adjustment  was  entirely  improbable, 
that  the  weaker  race  was  likely  to  succumb  to  the 
stronger.  Indeed,  they  were  more  pessimistic  than 
the  facts  or  subsequent  history  justified.  It  seems 
likely  that  Clay  had  more  sentiment  in  the  matter 
than  the  occasion  warranted,  but  it  is  to  his  credit 

313 


THE   TRUE    HENRY    CLAY 

that  he  was  ever  anxious  to  secure  to  the  Indians  as 
many  rights  and  privileges  as  possible.  In  his  day 
the  tribes  West  of  the  Missouri  roamed  the  prairies 
unharmed.  He  was  principally  concerned  with  the 
Southern  Indians,  which  have  since  become  the 
Five  Civilized  Nations,  and  the  Seminoles,  who  waged 
the  longest  war  against  this  government.  Clay 
wanted  essential  justice  done.  He  demanded  lands 
and  compensation  for  the  Cherokees,  Chickasaws, 
and  Choctaws,  along  with  their  allies,  and  was  promi 
nent  and  energetic  in  securing  for  them  a  location 
in  the  present  Indian  Territory,  although  at  that  time 
it  seemed  about  as  far  distant  as  does  now  Alaska. 

Clay's  connection  with  Texas,  although  it  does  not 
specifically  belong  in  a  consideration  of  the  question 
of  the  public  lands,  has  a  connection  with  that  issue 
which  cannot  be  ignored.  Like  most  of  the  young 
Republicans  of  the  early  part  of  the  century,  Clay 
was  disgusted  over  the  failure  of  the  administration 
to  secure  Texas  at  the  time  of  the  treaty  with  Spain 
that  secured  us  the  Floridas.  Monroe  was  President 
at  the  time,  and  the  younger  Adams,  Secretary  of 
State.  The  latter  had  secured  from  Spain  a  grant 
of  a  large  part  of  what  was  then  called  Texas,  though 
it  included  less  than  the  present  State,  and  he  might 
have  secured  a  good  deal  more.  It  was  not  the 
virtuous,  slavery-hating  Adams  who  cut  down  this 
offer,  but  the  Virginia  slave-holder,  Monroe,  who  had 
already  noted  with  apprehension  that  New  England 
statesmen  viewed  with  distrust  the  encroaching  politi 
cal  power  of  the  West.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  moral 
status  of  slavery  entered  largely  into  the  matter, 
but  the  old  Federalists  had  made  so  many  threats 
during  the  war  of  1812  and  at  the  time  of  the 
Louisiana  Purchase,  that  Monroe  was  minded  to  be 
cautious,  and  actually  refused  much  of  the  soil  that 
was  offered.  His  Cabinet  finally  agreed  with  him  to 

3H 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

a  man,  and  that  Cabinet  included  Calhoun,  who  was 
accused  later,  while  Secretary  of  State,  of  abstracting 
the  papers  filed  there,  so  that  his  own  record  would 
not  stand  against  him. 

Clay  was  no  sooner  warm  in  his  seat  in  the  Cabi 
net  under  Adams  than  he  made  an  effort  to  pur 
chase  Texas  from  Mexico,  but  this  proved  abortive. 
Then  came  the  series  of  filibustering  expeditions 
and  the  "  independence"  movement  which  were  con 
ducted  by  Austin,  Rusk,  and  Houston,  and  resulted 
in  a  temporary  defeat  of  the  Mexicans.  If  there 
had  been  any  sort  of  administrative  power  in  Mexico, 
the  movement  would  have  been  short-lived,  but  the 
alleged  republic  raised  more  revolutions  than  any 
thing  else.  Though  the  war  was  nominally  kept  up, 
by  the  early  thirties  there  was  still  a  semblance  of 
government.  The  massacre  of  the  Alamo  had  been 
retrieved  and  avenged  by  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto, 
and  there  were  those  in  this  country  who  moved  at 
once  for  annexation.  As  this  was  premature,  and  as 
Texas  had  not  made  the  request,  it  proved  a  failure. 
Calhoun  had  set  his  mind  on  the  annexation  because 
it  seemed  to  afford  a  chance  for  a  number  of  new 
slave  States,  whereby  his  theory  of  preserving  the 
numerical  balance  between  the  two  sections  could  be 
preserved.  When  it  came  to  details,  he  found  the  task 
difficult,  and  it  was  abandoned  for  the  time.  When 
Texas  did  apply  for  admission,  the  situation  was 
by  no  means  clear.  Independence  seemed  to  be 
largely  on  paper,  and  Mexico  sent  a  warning  that 
anything  savoring  of  annexation  would  mean  war. 
The  application  was  refused  by  the  vote  of  a  large 
number  of  Southern  men,  who  felt  that  Calhoun  was 
driving  them  too  fast.  Clay  opposed  annexation  at 
this  time. 

Eventually,  the  subject  came  up  in  the  last  weeks 
of  the  Tyler  administration,  and  it  was  felt  that  some- 

315 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

thing  must  be  done.  It  was  almost  the  end  of  the 
session  when  the  House  and  the  Senate  came  into  col 
lision  on  the  subject.  Calhoun  was  Secretary  of 
State,  and  the  House  had  followed  his  lead  by  passing 
a  bill  which  provided  for  annexation  through  the  pas 
sage  of  a  simple  act  and  the  despatch  of  a  commis 
sioner  to  Texas  to  arrange  the  ratification.  The  Senate 
would  not  agree  to  this,  but  passed  a  bill  looking  to  a 
negotiation  with  Mexico,  rightly  holding  that  this  was 
too  serious  a  subject  to  be  decided  without  consider 
ation  of  her  rights.  Calhoun  believed  there  would 
be  no  war,  but  had  a  notion  that  he  could  buy  Texas 
through  an  intrigue  he  had  conducted  with  Santa 
Anna,  the  ofttime  dictator  of  Mexico,  now  in  re 
tirement  in  Cuba.  At  this  juncture,  Benton,  who 
managed  to  control  the  situation,  was  approached 
(Clay  having  left  the  Senate),  and  the  suggestion 
was  made  to  him  that  the  two  bills  be  united  so  as 
to  give  the  President  his  choice  as  to  a  course  of 
action.  Benton  demurred,  but  as  only  three  days 
were  left  to  take  some  action,  he  went  to  see  Polk, 
who  was  in  town  waiting  for  his  inauguration,  and 
that  statesman  said  he  would  be  glad  to  adopt  the 
Senate  horn  of  the  dilemma  and  would  select  the 
best  men  in  the  country  from  all  parties  to  conduct 
the  negotiation.  The  bill  passed,  was  signed  by  the 
President  (Tyler),  who,  in  defiance  of  the  intent  of 
the  law  and  against  the  wishes  of  nearly  every  man 
in  Congress,  sent  off  a  commissioner  at  midnight,  in 
the  midst  of  a  driving  storm,  to  accomplish  the 
annexation  at  the  time  when  Polk  was  making  up  his 
commission.  Texas  came  in  with  war.  Clay,  who 
opposed  the  annexation,  but  perforce  supported  the 
war  in  his  great  market-house  speech  at  Lexington, 
expressed  his  views  on  the  subject.  He  had  been 
defeated  for  the  Presidency  before  annexation  took 
place  and  wanted  to  be  President  in  1848,  but  the 

316 


LIEUTENANT-COLONEL   HENRY    CLAY,    JR. 

(Killed  at  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista.  This  son  resembled  his  father  in  many 
respects,  and  alone  seemed  likely  to  follow  in  his  footsteps.  Original  at  Ash 
land.  Photographed  especially  for  this  volume.) 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  him.  If  he  had 
not  meddled  with  the  Texas  question  in  1844,  he 
would  have  been  elected.  If  he  had  stood  by  the 
Raleigh  letter,  he  would  have  been  elected.  Be 
cause  he  tried  to  please  antagonistic  factions  in  the 
North  and  the  South,  he  failed. 

One  incident  in  Clay's  career  here  deserves  espe 
cial  mention,  because  in  some  degree  it  opened  his 
eyes  to  the  essential  fallacy  of  a  compromise  be 
tween  that  which  is  right  and  that  which  seems  ex 
pedient.  In  1835-36  there  was  much  indignation 
among  the  conservative  politicians  over  the  action 
of  the  abolitionists  in  their  constant  appeals  for 
the  wiping  out  of  slavery.  The  men  who  were 
back  of  this  movement,  as  a  rule,  were  of  unim 
peachable  moral  character.  Benjamin  Lundy  had 
started  early  in  the  century  at  Knoxville,  Tennessee, 
an  abolition  newspaper,  which  was  in  reality  a  suc 
cessor  to  an  earlier  one  published  by  Moses  Embree, 
a  Quaker,  who  in  the  heart  of  the  slavery  region 
wrote  fearlessly  and  without  opposition  views  that 
a  generation  later  were  not  tolerated.  Lundy 
moved  the  paper  East,  and  was  succeeded  by  Gar 
rison,  who  was  temperamentally  unfitted  to  get  along 
with  men,  but  whose  views  on  slavery  were  uncom 
promising.  Birney  was  a  much  better  balanced 
man,  and  was  more  forceful  among  the  slave-holders 
in  bringing  to  their  minds  a  correct  view  of  the 
nature  of  the  institution.  But  Garrison  was  radical 
and  rabid  to  a  degree  that  was  to  be  explained 
only  on  the  ground  that  he  proposed  to  fight  the 
devil  with  fire.  He  had  around  him  a  coterie  of 
men  who  damned  the  Constitution  as  a  compact 
with  hell,  and  made  other  statements  which  angered 
the  conservatives  and  led  to  the  Boston  riots,  in 
which  the  most  eminent  men  were  against  the  fiery 
editor. 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Nothing  but  the  righteousness  of  his  cause  saved 
Garrison,  who  was  one  of  the  least  diplomatic  of 
men,  and  who  had  many  things  about  him  which 
repelled  those  who  were  as  earnest  as  he  in  se 
curing  abolition.  There  were  two  wings  of  the 
abolitionists,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  radical  one 
in  the  end  was  the  more  effective  in  stirring  up  agi 
tation  and  arousing  an  enlightened  public  opinion. 
As  the  abolition  press  grew  and  increased  its  viru 
lence,  it  attracted  attention,  and  by  the  time  Calhoun 
had  become  the  leader  of  the  slave-holding  oligarchy 
in  the  South,  almost  all  Southerners,  and  not  a  few 
in  the  North,  felt  that  something  ought  to  be  done 
to  curb  "incendiary"  editors.  But  it  was  difficult 
to  decide  on  any  course  of  action.  Petitions  for 
abolition  were  sent  to  the  House  and  Senate  in  in 
creasing  numbers.  Clay,  who  at  first  wished  these 
to  have  respectful  attention,  even  when  the  prayer 
was  denied,  now  began  to  grow  tired,  and  they  were 
treated  with  less  ceremony. 

A  crisis  came  when  the  Postmaster-General  refused 
to  deliver  certain  abolition  newspapers  sent  to  the 
South.  He  had  no  right  to  this  position,  and  the 
subject  was  brought  before  Congress.  Calhoun  had 
figured  out  a  curious  course  of  action  which  seemed 
to  him  at  once  constitutional  and  feasible.  It  was 
that  the  postmaster  at  the  point  of  destination  should 
refuse  to  deliver  any  newspapers  which  were  illegal 
documents  under  the  laws  of  the  State,  and  at  the 
same  time  should  advertise  the  fact  so  that  the 
addressees  could  have  the  newspapers  returned. 
In  some  States  it  was  a  crime  to  have  in  one's  pos 
session  the  more  radical  antislavery  organs,  and 
Calhoun  believed  that  the  postmaster  was  the  best 
sort  of  censor  under  the  circumstances.  Clay  had 
as  little  love  for  the  abolitionists  as  Calhoun,  but 
he  saw  that  such  a  law  would  be  ridiculous  and  not 

318 


LAND  DISTRIBUTION  AND  OTHER  POLICIES 

only  unconstitutional,  but  sure  to  provoke  much 
more  trouble  than  the  mere  circulation  of  the  news 
papers.  He  spoke  against  the  bill,  and  in  the 
angry  colloquy  that  followed,  Calhoun  accused  him 
of  having  been  on  his  back  in  1833.  Calhoun's 
bill  was  lost. 

Legislation  on  the  subject  of  slavery  became 
more  and  more  difficult.  Northern  opinion  de 
veloped  into  a  definite  view  that  the  institution  was 
a  moral  evil  and  must  be  curbed  whenever  possible, 
and  the  Southern  statesmen  conceived  the  notion 
that  it  was  a  national  institution  which  penetrated 
every  portion  of  the  Federal  territory  by  virtue  of 
the  Constitution,  as  Taney  laid  down  many  years 
later. 

In  all  his  dealings  with  the  subject  Clay,  anxious 
for  an  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  slave, 
objected  to  the  extension  of  slavery,  but  tried  his 
best  to  keep  the  subject  entirely  out  of  politics, 
something  that  he  could  not  possibly  achieve,  since 
politics  was  coming  more  and  more  to  revolve 
around  the  subject,  which  soon  was  to  be  the  vital 
issue  between  the  great  parties. 

In  1841,  when  the  land  bill  was  one  of  the  prin 
cipal  measures  under  discussion,  Clay  and  King,  of 
Alabama,  came  into  violent  discussion,  and  the  lie 
was  passed.  Both  men  were  at  fever  heat  and 
retired  to  committee  rooms,  where  it  was  decided 
that  this  was  a  case  for  a  duel.  Preparations  were 
actually  under  way  when  cooler  heads  interposed, 
and  it  was  resolved  that  an  accommodation  must 
be  made.  Clay  recovered  his  senses  quickest  of 
all.  He  walked  back  into  the  Senate  chamber  and 
approached  King  in  apparently  the  most  casual 
manner,  and  in  most  friendly  language  said,  "  I  say, 
King,  let  me  have  a  pinch  of  snuff,  will  you  ?" 

The  incident  closed  at  once. 
3'9 


XXIII 

PARTY    DICTATOR 

WHEN,  during  the  first  Whig  administration,  the 
nomination  of  Edward  Everett  to  the  important 
mission  to  Great  Britain  was  announced,  there  was 
considerable  opposition  to  his  confirmation,  because 
he  had  endorsed  the  petition  of  those  who  wanted 
to  have  slavery  abolished  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
saying  that  it  was  competent  for  Congress  to  do  so. 
The  opponents  of  the  petition  urged  that  it  meant 
that  the  Union  would  be  dissolved.  At  this  Clay 
rose  to  his  full  height,  and  with  a  gleam  of  fire  in 
his  eyes,  announced  :  "  If  his  nomination  is  rejected 
for  the  reasons  given  by  the  gentleman  (King,  of 
Alabama),  this  Union  is  dissolved  already." 

The  nomination  was  confirmed  without  further 
trouble. 

Although  Clay  always  resented  with  much  warmth 
the  assertion  that  he  was  a  party  dictator,  no  man  in 
our  history  ever  so  completely  justified  that  term  in 
a  legitimate  sense.  He  entered  public  life  as  a  warm 
JefTersonian  Democrat,  but  soon  found  the  situa 
tion  required  less  philosophy  and  more  action.  He 
forced  the  war  of  1812,  and  up  to  the  time  he  left 
the  House,  in  1825,  to  enter  Adams'  cabinet,  he  was 
the  leader  in  all  legislation.  Always  liberal  to  the 
opposition  in  making  up  committees,  he  nevertheless 
had  matters  generally  in  complete  control,  and 
though  masterful — at  times  imperious — it  was  always 
in  that  winning  manner  that  left  behind  it  not  the 
slightest  tinge  of  humiliation.  Members  used  to 
complain  that  Jackson  compelled  them  with  whips 

320 


PARTY   DICTATOR 

and  scorpions  to  obey  his  wishes,  and  they  obeyed, 
while  resenting.  Clay  was  followed  without  ques 
tioning  and,  as  a  rule,  without  murmuring. 

It  was  not  until  Clay  came  to  the  Senate,  in  1831, 
that  party  lines  began  to  be  drawn  anew.  The 
Federalists  were  gone,  and  the  National  Republicans, 
under  the  leadership  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  had 
made  a  bad  showing.  The  situation  now  reverted 
to  individuals.  For  years  men  were  for  Clay  or 
Jackson,  and  party  names  counted  for  little  or 
nothing.  When  Clay  made  his  own  programme,  in 
1831-32,  there  were  those  who  doubted  the  wisdom 
of  some  of  his  ideas,  but  they  did  not  openly  dis 
pute  them.  By  means  of  his  alliance  with  Calhoun 
and  Webster,  Clay  managed  to  get  nearly  everything 
he  wanted  through  Congress,  although,  at  the  last, 
defeated  by  Jackson.  In  1833,  there  were  a  number 
of  his  former  followers  who  insisted  that  he  was 
wrong  in  making  the  compromise  on  the  tariff,  but 
Clay  held  the  leash  so  tight  that  of  his  former  sup 
porters  Webster,  alone,  refused  to  follow  him,  and 
this  refusal  caused  an  estrangement  which  lasted 
for  years. 

The  most  astonishing  feature  of  Clay's  career  was 
his  ability  to  combine  diverse  interests  in  behalf  of 
his  legislation.  This  was  partly  because  he  had  a 
persuasive  manner  in  private  speech,  as  well  as  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate  ;  partly  because  he  assumed 
leadership  at  a  time  when  members  wanted  a  leader 
and  were  willing  to  take  any  man  who  showed  ca 
pacity  ;  but  most  of  all  because  of  that  peculiar  per 
sonal  magnetism  which  he  exercised  over  all  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact.  During  Jackson's  two 
terms  he  held  his  forces  in  order  as  well  as  possible, 
but  it  was  impossible  to  secure  any  party  legislation 
in  opposition  to  Old  Hickory.  During  Van  Buren's 
term,  the  hard  times  made  it  possible  for  Clay  to  set 

31  321 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

his  forces  in  order,  though  only  such  remedial  legis 
lation  as  was  absolutely  imperative  was  passed. 
Considering  that  for  thirty  years  he  had  been  most 
of  the  time  in  public  life,  had  practically  erected  the 
Whig  party  on  his  own  platform,  had  led  the  fight 
against  Jackson,  and  taken  more  blows  than  all  the 
rest,  Clay  assumed  that  he  would  be  nominated  for 
the  Presidency.  Even  in  the  victory  of  the  Whig 
party  he  found  some  consolation. 

In  the  elections  of  1840  the  Whigs  had  been  uni 
formly  successful.  Clay  could  count  up  a  majority 
of  seven  in  the  Senate  and  about  fifty  in  the  House, 
which  was  ample.  Harrison  desired  that  Clay  be 
come  Secretary  of  State,  but  the  post  was  refused. 
Clay  must  have  winced  at  the  mere  offer  of  a  place 
connected  with  the  bitterest  experiences  of  his  life. 
He  desired  to  remain  in  the  Senate,  where  his  pro 
gramme  could  be  carried  out,  and  he  was  so  masterful 
that  he  prevented  Harrison  from  appointing  Webster 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  as  was  desired  by  both. 
Clay  said  he  would  denounce  the  appointment  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate  and  prevent  confirmation  if 
he  could.  So  Webster  was  made  Secretary  of  State, 
and  Clay  prepared  his  programme  at  Ashland  for 
the  coming  winter.  Thirty  days  passed,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  this  country's  history  death  struck  down 
the  Chief  Magistrate.  Tyler  hastened  to  Washing 
ton  and  assumed  the  office  in  all  its  completeness, 
though  there  was  some  effort  to  call  him  simply 
"acting  President." 

The  hearts  of  the  Whigs  fell  when  they  learned 
of  the  change  which  had  taken  place.  Harrison 
was  a  good  natured  old  gentleman,  who  would  have 
permitted  Clay  to  do  pretty  much  as  he  pleased. 
Tyler  was  of  a  different  stamp.  He  was  a  strict 
constructionist  of  the  old  school,  and  it  is  certain 
he  never  would  have  been  nominated  had  there  been 

322 


PARTY   DICTATOR 

the  slightest  notion  that  he  would  reach  the  Presi 
dency.  Clay  felt  the  situation  keenly.  He  knew  Tyler 
so  well  that  he  had  doubts  as  to  his  being  a  good 
Whig  on  some  points,  and  he  wrote  a  letter  calcu 
lated  to  draw  him  out  on  the  bank  and  other  ques 
tions.  To  this  Tyler  replied  rather  equivocally, 
though  he  seemed  to  think  some  sort  of  a  constitu 
tional  bank  or  fiscal  agency  could  be  erected  to 
carry  on  the  necessary  business  of  the  government. 
Whether  Clay  deceived  himself,  or  was  later  so 
angered  that  he  was  willing  to  do  anything  to 
"crucify  Tyler,"  is  not  certain.  He  always  asserted 
that  Tyler  was  professedly  a  good  Whig,  so  far  as  his 
letter  indicated. 

In  the  fall  of  1841  Clay  came  to  Washington  pre 
pared  to  conduct  the  business  of  the  Whig  party 
and  the  government  without  advice  or  consultation. 
That  he  expected  to  dominate  the  President  seems 
also  likely.  When  Congress  was  at  last  in  session 
he  opened  his  programme,  which  consisted  of  the 
following  important  items  : 

A  new  tariff  bill. 

A  national  bank. 

A  land  distribution  act 

The  first  involved  a  repeal  of  the  sub-treasury 
system,  which  had  been  established  under  Van  Buren, 
and  was  accomplished  without  a  great  deal  of  trouble, 
only  to  be  re-established  at  a  later  date.  The  tariff 
bill  was  necessary,  because  the  revenues  were  now 
so  small  that  the  government  had  to  borrow  money 
to  conduct  the  administration  of  affairs  even  on  an 
economical  basis.  Manufacturers  were  clamoring 
for  protection,  and  Clay  had  to  admit  that  he  had 
been  mistaken  in  supposing  that  by  1842  there 
would  be  no  more  necessity  for  such  government 
support. 

The  national  bank  was  a  cardinal  Whig  doctrine, 
323 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

and  Clay  was  anxious  to  have  a  new  one  estab 
lished,  not  only  because  he  considered  it  essential, 
but  also  because  he  wanted  a  vindication  of  his 
policy  during  the  many  years  he  had  fought  for 
the  Biddle  institution.  The  land  distribution  act 
he  considered,  perhaps,  the  most  essential  of  all  the 
measures,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  first  effort  in 
that  line  had  been  so  disastrous.  For  the  rest  he 
decided  that  only  necessary  appropriation  bills  should 
be  passed  and  a  bill  to  make  loans  which  were  es 
sential  owing  to  the  condition  of  the  treasury. 

When  he  unfolded  this  programme  he  found 
he  had  omitted  one  feature  which  it  was  necessary 
to  insert  in  order  to  secure  the  adhesion  of  sufficient 
members.  This  was  a  national  bankrupt  law,  which 
was  asked  for  because  of  the  conditions  arising  out 
of  the  panic  and  subsequent  years  of  depression. 
Clay  accepted  this  necessity  with  ill  grace,  and  the 
law  was  passed  and  worked  so  outrageously  that  it 
was  speedily  repealed.  Tyler  was  already  planning 
for  a  party  coup.  He  wanted  to  be  rid  of  his 
Cabinet,  so  that  he  could  rally  friends  of  his  own 
around  him  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a  man, 
who  had  the  abilities  of  Tyler,  could  have  been  so 
artfully  played  upon  by  friends  who  were  not 
Whigs.  The  demon  of  ambition  had  entered  his 
being  and  seems  to  have  destroyed  his  mental 
balance.  For  a  time  he  halted  between  two  courses, 
but  finally  cast  the  die  in  favor  of  apostasy,  and 
went  as  far  as  possible  in  his  efforts  to  destroy 
the  Whig  party. 

On  the  night  following  the  reception  of  the  second 
bank  veto,  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  except 
Webster,  met  with  Clay  to  consult  upon  the  situa 
tion.  They  agreed  to  resign,  and  did  so  in  a  body, 
writing  letters  in  which  Tyler  was  accused  of  apos 
tasy,  of  lying,  and  nearly  all  other  political  crimes. 

324 


PARTY   DICTATOR 

The  resignations  were  necessary  to  save  the  party 
and  themselves.  Already  it  had  been  discovered 
by  members  of  the  Cabinet  that  to  get  news  of  the 
administration  they  must  read  the  New  York  Her 
ald,  which  had  sources  of  information  which  they 
traced  directly  to  the  White  House.  When  an 
article  appeared  in  that  newspaper  asking  the  mem 
bers  why  they  remained  where  they  were  not  wanted, 
the  crisis  was  reached,  and  the  veto  gave  them  the 
opportunity  they  sought. 

Next  day  the  members  handed  in  their  resigna 
tions  at  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet.  Webster  alone 
remained,  and  he  was  much  perturbed  in  spirit. 
He  did  not  wish  to  resign,  and  was  angered  that 
Clay  should  have  taken  upon  himself  the  complete 
leadership  of  the  party,  for  Webster  had  long  thirsted 
for  the  Presidency,  and  was  tired  of  playing  second. 
After  the  other  members  had  left  the  room,  he 
turned  to  Tyler. 

"Where  am  I  to  go,  Mr.  President?"  he  said. 

"You  must  decide  that  for  yourself,  Mr.  Web 
ster,"  Tyler  answered. 

"  If  you  leave  it  to  me,  Mr.  President,  I  will  stay 
where  I  am." 

This  so  pleased  Tyler  that  he  grasped  Webster's 
hand  warmly.  "Give  me  your  hand  upon  that,"  he 
said  ;  "  and  now  I  will  say  to  you  that  Henry  Clay 
is  a  doomed  man  from  this  hour." 

That  Tyler  should  have  wanted  to  doom  Clay  to 
political  destruction  is  surprising  enough,  but  the 
means  which  he  took  to  accomplish  his  purpose 
show  that  he  had  little  knowledge  of  human  nature 
in  politics. 

Clay  was  by  this  time  a  chained  tiger.  He  had 
seen  almost  all  of  his  programme  shattered.  He 
had  succeeded  in  getting  a  tariff  bill,  but  it  was  not 
what  he  wanted,  and  to  secure  it  at  all  he  had  been 

325 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

obliged  to  sacrifice  the  land  surplus  distribution  act. 
All  that  he  had  accomplished  in  the  entire  session 
was  a  bankrupt  act  that  was  vicious  and  a  tariff  bill 
that  was  unsatisfactory.  Now,  he  saw  that  it  was  to 
be  a  duel  to  the  death  between  Tyler  and  himself, 
and,  as  he  was  the  unanimous  choice  of  the  party 
for  the  nomination  in  1844,  ne  used  more  circum 
spection  than  in  the  contest  of  1832.  He  expended 
his  best  efforts  upon  the  building  up  of  the  Whig 
party  and  upon  closing  the  ranks  for  the  coming 
struggle.  He  was  far  from  being  a  "doomed  man," 
and  Tyler's  attitude  does  not  seem  to  have  hurt  him 
or  the  Whig  party,  though  it  is  true  that  much  in 
dignation  was  expressed  over  Webster's  course  in 
remaining  in  the  Cabinet.  Webster  himself  declared 
that  it  was  to  complete  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain, 
but  he  found  that  he  was  in  an  uncongenial  atmos 
phere  and  got  out  as  soon  as  possible. 

Clay,  now  sixty-five  years  old,  had  resolved  to 
make  his  next  canvass  as  a  private  citizen.  He  had 
sent  his  resignation  to  the  governor,  and  when  the 
credentials  of  his  successor  arrived,  he  seized  an 
early  opportunity  to  present  them  and  make  the 
"Farewell  Speech,"  which  was  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  ever  delivered  in  the  Senate.  Notice 
of  his  intentions  had  spread,  and  the  galleries  were 
crowded. 

Clay  was  at  his  best,  and  realized  a  triumph.  In 
his  farewell  he  reviewed  his  career  in  brief,  besought 
forgiveness  of  his  enemies,  and  in  a  burst  of  emo 
tional  eloquence  brought  tears  to  every  eye.  The 
speech  is  one  that  reads  well  to  this  day,  and  it 
must  have  fallen  grandly  from  the  lips  of  the  old 
man,  who,  tall  and  straight  as  a  pine,  yet  quivering 
with  emotion,  spoke  the  words  which  made  every 
Senator  believe  that  a  truly  great  man  was  depart 
ing  out  of  Israel. 

326 


PARTY   DICTATOR 

Speaking  of  his  early  career  and  the  manner  in 
which  Kentucky  had  adopted  and  honored  him, 
Clay  said  : 

"But  scarce  had  I  set  my  foot  on  her  [Kentucky's]  gen 
erous  soil,  when  I  was  embraced  with  parental  fondness, 
caressed  as  though  I  had  been  a  favorite  child,  and  patron 
ized  with  liberal  and  unbounded  munificence.  From  that 
period  the  highest  honors  of  the  State  have  been  freely  be 
stowed  on  me ;  and  when,  in  the  darkest  hour  of  calumny 
and  detraction,  I  seemed  to  be  assailed  by  all  the  rest  of  the 
world,  she  interposed  her  broad  and  impenetrable  shield, 
repelled  the  poisoned  shafts  which  were  aimed  for  my  destruc 
tion,  and  vindicated  my  good  name  from  every  malignant 
and  unfounded  aspersion.  I  return  with  indescribable  pleas 
ure  to  linger  a  while  longer,  and  mingle  with  the  warm 
hearted  and  whole-souled  people  of  that  State  ;  and,  when 
the  last  scene  shall  forever  close  upon  me,  I  hope  that  my 
earthly  remains  will  be  laid  under  the  green  sod  with  those 
of  her  gallant  and  patriotic  sons. 

' '  I  am  held  up  to  the  country  as  a  dictator.  A  dictator  ! 
The  idea  of  a  dictatorship  is  drawn  from  Roman  institutions  ; 
and  at  the  time  the  office  was  created,  -the  person  who 
wielded  the  tremendous  weight  of  authority  it  conferred 
concentrated  in  his  own  person  an  absolute  power  over  the 
lives  and  property  of  all  his  fellow-citizens  :  he  could  levy 
armies  ;  he  could  build  and  man  navies  ;  he  could  raise  any 
amount  of  revenue  he  might  choose  to  demand  ;  and  life  and 
death  rested  on  his  fiat.  If  I  were  a  dictator,  as  I  am  said 
to  be,  where  is  the  power  with  which  I  am  clothed  ?  Have 
I  any  army,  any  navy,  any  revenue,  any  patronge  ;  in  a 
word,  any  power  whatever?  If  I  have  been  a  dictator,  I 
think  that  even  those  who  have  the  most  freely  applied  to 
me  the  appellation  must  be  compelled  to  make  due  admission  ; 
first,  that  my  dictatorship  has  been  distinguished  by  no  cruel 
executions,  stained  by  no  blood,  sullied  by  no  act  of  dis 
honor  ;  and  I  think  they  must  also  own  that  if  I  did  usurp 
the  power  of  a  dictator,  I  at  least  voluntarily  surrendered 
it  within  a  shorter  period  than  was  allotted  for  the  dura 
tion  of  the  dictatorship  of  the  Roman  commonwealth. 

"  That  my  nature  is  warm,  my  temper  ardent,  my  dispo 
sition,  especially  in  relation  to  the  public  service,  enthusi 
astic,  I  am  ready  to  own  ;  and  those  who  suppose  that  I 
have  been  assuming  the  dictatorship,  have  only  mistaken  for 
arrogance  or  assumption  that  ardor  and  devotion  which  are 

327 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

natural  to  my  constitution,  and  which  I  may  have  displayed 
with  too  little  regard  to  cold,  calculating,  and  cautious  pru 
dence  in  sustaining  and  zealously  supporting  important 
national  measures  of  policy  which  I  presented  and  espoused. 

"  In  the  course  of  a  long  and  arduous  public  service,  espe 
cially  during  the  last  eleven  years  in  which  I  have  held  a 
seat  in  the  Senate,  from  the  same  ardor  and  enthusiasm  of 
character,  I  have  no  doubt,  in  the  heat  of  debate,  and  in  an 
honest  endeavor  to  maintain  my  opinions  against  adverse 
opinions  alike  honestly  entertained,  as  to  the  best  course  to 
be  adopted  for  the  public  welfare,  I  may  have  often  inadver 
tently  and  unintentionally,  in  moments  of  excited  debate, 
made  use  of  language  that  has  been  offensive  and  susceptible 
of  injurious  interpretation  towards  my  brother  Senators.  If 
there  be  any  here  who  retain  wounded  feelings  of  injury  or 
dissatisfaction,  produced  on  such  occasions,  I  beg  to  assure 
them  that  I  now  offer  the  most  ample  apology  for  any 
departure  on  my  part  from  the  established  rules  of  parlia 
mentary  decorum  and  courtesy.  On  the  other  hand,  I  assure 
Senators,  one  and  all,  without  exception,  and  without  re 
serve,  that  I  retire  from  this  chamber  without  carrying  with 
me  a  single  feeling  of  resentment  or  dissatisfaction  to  the 
Senate  or  any  of  its  members.  I  go  from  this  place  under 
the  hope  that  we  shall  mutually  consign  to  perpetual  oblivion 
whatever  personal  collisions  may  at  any  time  unfortunately 
have  occurred  between  us  ;  and  that  our  recollections  shall 
dwell  in  future  only  on  those  conflicts  of  mind  with  mind, 
and  those  intellectual  struggles,  those  noble  exhibitions  of 
the  power  of  logic,  argument,  and  eloquence,  honorable  to 
the  Senate  and  to  the  nation,  in  which  each  has  sought  and 
contended  for  what  he  deemed  the  best  mode  of  accom 
plishing  one  common  object, — the  interest  and  the  most  happi 
ness  of  our  beloved  country.  To  these  thrilling  and  delight 
ful  scenes  it  will  be  my  pleasure  and  my  pride  to  look  back 
in  my  retirement  with  unmeasured  satisfaction. 

"May  the  most  precious  blessings  of  Heaven  rest  upon 
the  whole  Senate  and  each  member  of  it,  and  may  the  labors 
of  every  one  redound  to  the  benefit  of  the  nation  and  to  the 
advancement  of  his  own  fame  and  renown.  And  when  you 
shall  retire  to  the  bosom  of  your  constituents,  may  you  re 
ceive  the  most  cheering  and  gratifying  of  all  human  re 
wards,  their  cordial  greeting  of  '  Well  done,  good  and  faith 
ful  servant.' 

"And  now,  Mr.  President  and  Senators,  I  bid  you  all  a 
long,  a  lasting,  and  a  friendly  farewell." 

328 


PARTY   DICTATOR 

Upon  the  conclusion  of  the  speech,  the  Senate 
found  itself  unable  to  do  business  and  immediately 
adjourned. 

Later,  in  another  and  longer  speech  made  at 
Lexington  to  an  immense  assemblage  of  his  former 
constituents,  Clay  went  over  his  whole  career,  apol 
ogizing  for  his  errors,  and  explaining  his  conduct  in 
a  way  that  wrought  his  hearers  up  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  enthusiasm. 

Surely  there  was  a  heart  in  Henry  Clay  such  as 
few  public  men  have  possessed,  and  for  his  efforts  to 
carry  out  his  policy,  whenever  he  was  bitter,  he  may 
be  forgiven.  He  loved  much.  Though  this  Sen 
ate  speech  was  given  as  a  farewell  there  were  ten 
years  left  him,  much  of  which  time  he  spent  in  public 
life  and  always  in  the  public  eye.  He  was  the  sort 
of  man  to  whom  no  State  could  afford  to  grant  a 
private  life,  and  Kentucky  honored  herself  more 
than  she  did  him  in  the  constant  manifestations  of 
affection  and  tributes  of  honor  which  she  showered 
upon  him. 

The  longest  period  of  retirement  which  Clay  en 
joyed  from  the  time  he  was  twenty-five  until  the 
end  of  his  life  was  after  this  farewell  which  he  meant 
to  be  permanent.  Six  years  after  its  delivery  he 
was  recalled  to  the  scene  of  action,  and  died  in  the 
harness.  The  interim  was  not  one  of  repose.  He 
made  one  Presidential  canvass  and  one  for  the  nom 
ination  in  1848.  He  was  constantly  called  upon  to 
make  tours,  or  to  write  letters,  or  deliver  speeches, 
and  during  the  time  mentioned  he  was,  perhaps,  as 
active  as  at  any  other  period  of  his  life.  At  times 
he  had  no  other  ambition  than  to  live  at  Ashland, 
ponder  on  events,  and  pace  up  and  down  the  path 
on  his  estate,  which  was  known  then  and  now  as 
"  Clay's  Walk."  At  other  times  the  fire  of  ambition 
was  in  his  soul.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  1844, 

329 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

almost  up  to  the  last  moment,  he  fully  expected  to 
be  elected.  On  other  occasions  he  had  been  san 
guine  only  at  the  beginning  of  the  canvass.  There 
was  but  one  reason  why  he  did  not  succeed  in  1 844, 
and  that  was  his  fatal  habit  of  explaining  and  de 
fending  and  apologizing  for  things  that  he  should 
have  treated  with  silence.  He  spent  one  winter  in 
New  Orleans  with  great  benefit  to  his  health.  At 
the  races  many  of  his  horses  won,  which  pleased 
him  greatly. 

One  day  during  the  campaign  he  was  racing  some 
horses  on  his  mile  track  at  Ashland  for  the  benefit 
of  visitors.  There  was  one  lively  colt  that  seemed 
the  fastest  on  the  track  and  was  held  in  high  es 
teem.  At  a  particular  trial  one  of  the  friends  named 
this  colt  Clay,  while  in  a  spirit  of  jest  another  guest 
named  an  apparently  inferior  horse  Polk.  To  the  sur 
prise  and  consternation  of  all  concerned  Polk  came 
in  ahead.  It  is  said  that  the  incident  affected  Clay 
considerably,  though  he  was  not  superstitious. 

The  race-course  which  still  exists  and  on  which 
the  descendants  of  these  horses  are  regularly  exer 
cised  was  a  famous  meeting-place  for  horsemen  in 
the  neighborhood.  People  came  from  far  and  near 
to  see  the  horses  exercise,  and  were  entertained  by 
Clay  in  his  best  fashion.  He  was  out  of  debt  at 
the  time,  thanks  to  many  of  his  friends  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  he  enjoyed  the  rural  delights  as  much  as 
any  man,  though  he  was  in  constant  correspondence 
with  political  leaders.  After  the  defeat  in  1844,  ne 
felt  that  the  country  had  so  far  rejected  him  that  he 
made  the  earnest  resolve,  at  the  request  of  his  wife, 
never  to  go  into  politics  again.  One  of  his  grand 
children  relates  that  from  that  time  on  he  lost  the 
austerity  which  he  had  exhibited  on  occasions.  He 
was  becoming  mellowed  as  befitted  a  man  almost 
seventy  years  of  age,  and  he  assumed  the  air  of  a 

330 


PARTY   DICTATOR 

patriarch.  He  would  visit  the  cabins  of  his  slaves 
and  see  that  every  want  was  attended  to,  would  look 
at  each  animal  on  the  place,  from  chickens  to  thor 
oughbreds,  and  would  go  into  the  town  to  dine 
friends  at  the  Phoenix  Hotel. 

After  his  market-house  speech,  which  was  a  bid 
for  the  Presidency,  he  waited  for  the  call  of  the 
country,  and  when  it  did  not  come  he  accepted  the 
result  with  true  composure.  He  was  a  member  of 
a  church,  and  was  exceedingly  faithful  to  all  the 
duties  imposed. 

There  are  many  of  the  present  generation  who  do 
not  understand  the  system,  which  so  long  prevailed 
in  this  country,  of  men  waiting  until  almost  the  end 
of  their  lives  before  "  making  peace  with  God,"  as 
the  expression  is.  It  may  appear  that  this  was  a 
cowardly  act,  a  sort  of  serving  the  devil  until  the 
last,  and  then  getting  in  under  cover  when  the  last 
trump  was  about  to  sound.  But  this  was  far  from 
being  the  case.  The  religious  spirit  of  that  age  was  a 
species  of  perfectionism,  which  was  an  outgrowth  of 
the  Reformation.  It  was  held  that  a  man  must  not 
enter  the  church  formally  until  he  had  passed  through 
fiery  trials  and  was  willing  to  devote  himself  exclu 
sively  to  good  works  and  to  a  sort  of  abnegation  in 
imitation  of  the  saints.  This  feeling  prevailed  in 
New  England  and  elsewhere  as  a  result  of  the  doc 
trinal  spirit  of  the  times.  Man,  through  the  fall  of 
Adam,  had  been  consigned  to  perdition,  and  there 
was  no  hope  for  him  except  through  the  appeasing 
of  a  God  who  was  angry  with  the  wicked  every  day. 
Redemption  was  a  matter  of  grace  that  was  carefully 
exercised,  and  by  no  means  liberally.  Many  works, 
it  was  believed,  must  accompany  faith ;  the  ordi 
nary  round  of  tasks  as  exercised  by  the  majority  was 
inconsistent  with  a  religious  life. 

This  notion  has  passed  away,  but  it  accounts  for 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

many  acts  that  are  otherwise  inexplicable.  Clay, 
who  could  not  in  his  earlier  years  have  complied 
with  the  exactions  of  the  church,  was  willing  in  his 
old  age  to  become  "reconciled  to  God,"  after  the 
prevailing  fashion,  and  loyally  did  he  adhere  to 
Christian  duty  as  was  then  expounded.  In  1849, 
much  against  his  better  inclinations,  he  heeded  the 
call  to  appear  as  a  peace-maker  in  the  nation,  and 
bowed  by  the  weight  of  years  accepted  the  duty. 
A  most  melancholy  experience  he  had  until  the  end. 
There  is  no  more  pathetic  picture  in  history  than 
that  of  the  old  man  called  as  the  physician  to  write 
prescriptions  for  ills  which  could  not  be  assuaged 
except  in  blood.  Clay  was  no  surgeon.  He  was 
an  eclectic  physician,  who  believed  in  the  use  of 
political  hypnotism,  of  palliatives,  of  sedatives,  and 
almost  of  anesthetics,  to  make  things  which  were  not 
equal  to  the  same  thing  apparently  equal  each  other. 


332 


XXIV 

THE    COMPROMISES    OF     1850 

WHEN  Clay  obeyed  the  voice  of  Kentucky  and 
for  the  last  time  entered  the  Senate,  he  was  old 
and  feeble.  At  seventy-three  he  was  bent,  and  a 
troublesome  cough  racked  him  day  and  night,  but 
he  was  cheerful,  and  at  times  seemed  to  renew  his 
youth.  The  session  of  1849—50  was  one  of  the 
most  memorable  in  history,  and  Clay  was  its  moving 
spirit.  He  arrived  after  the  session  had  begun, 
and  at  first  seemed  to  take  little  interest  in  the 
proceedings.  fHe  walked  slowly,  and  had  to  be 
assisted  up  and  down  the  marble  steps  of  the 
capitol.  In  the  Senate  he  long  kept  his  peace,  but 
all  eyes  were  upon  him.  It  was  felt  that  he,  alone, 
of  all  men,  was  able  to  heal  the  wounds  of  the 
republic.  (And  surely,  if  legislation  were  to  accom 
plish  the  desired  end,  the  physicians  present  seemed 
to  be  all  that  nature  could  provide.  3  It  was  the 
most  remarkable  legislative  body  that  ever  sat  in 
America.  It  seemed  as  if  the  country  had  been 
drained  of  its  talent  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the 
occasion. 

Here  once  more  the  Triumvirate  sat,  and  for  the 
last  time.  Passing  years  had  assuaged  the  bitter 
ness  of  early  rivalries,  and  they  were  once  more 
friends.  Clay  was  the  oldest  of  the  three,  and  even 
he  had  not  completely  thrown  away  ambition. 
Though  he  protested  he  could  not  be  thought  of 
as  a  candidate  for  1852,  there  were  times  when 
the  tempter  was  at  his  ear.  Webster  alone  was 
openly  ambitious.  He  was  younger  and  more  vig- 

333 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

orous  than  Clay,  though  soon  to  pass  away.  Cal- 
houn  was  tottering  on  the  brink  of  the  grave, 
his  intellect  still  undimmed,  and  his  belief  in  nullifi 
cation  still  so  strong  that  he  wanted  it  engraved 
on  his  tombstone.  The  three  men  were,  however, 
ghosts  of  the  past.  They  managed  to  secure  some 
alleged  compromises,  but  they  had  outlived  their 
times.  Younger  men  educated  by  them  were 
coming  on  the  field  and  were  to  give  a  new  trend 
to  politics. 

•  Oldest  in  point  of  service  was  Benton,  just  re 
jected  by  Missouri  after  a  service  of  thirty  years, 
because  he  would  not  bow  the  knee  to  the  slave- 
holding  oligarchy.  Intellectually  inferior  to  any  of 
the  Triumvirate,  he  was  their  superior  in  strength 
of  purpose  and  clearness  of  vision.  He  had  fought 
compromise  all  his  life,  was  unqualifiedly  for  the 
Union,  and  hated  Calhoun's  theory  of  nullification 
with  a  perfect  hatred.  He  had  sacrificed  his  seat 
rather  than  yield  his  views  on  slavery,  and  was 
now  enacting  his  last  role.  Curiously  enough,  he 
was  the  leading  spokesman  of  the  Whig  adminis 
tration,  while  Clay  and  Webster  fought  it  bitterly. 
Dogmatic,  imperious,  incorruptible,  Benton  was  soon 
to  pass  from  a  stage  where  he  had  acted  so  long 
and  so  honorably. 

These  were  the  four  leaders  of  the  Senate  ;  but 
there  was  another  group  of  tried  statesmen  of  large 
experience  and  much  vision.  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of 
Maine,  was  just  entering  upon  his  national  career  that 
was  to  last  for  many  years,  but  was  already  highly  es 
teemed.  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire,  was  soon  to 
be  a  free-soil  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  John 
Davis,  of  Massachusetts,  little  known  to  the  present 
generation,  his  glory  seeming  to  be  dimmed  by 
Webster,  was  one  of  the  most  useful  statesmen 
New  England  ever  sent  to  Washington,  and  accom- 

334 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

plished  much  more  in  legislation  than  his  colleague, 
whom  it  was  customary  to  call  the  "godlike." 
The  senior  Senator  from  New  York  was  Daniel  S. 
Dickinson,  destined  to  a  later  and  greater  fame. 
New  Jersey  was  represented  by  William  L.  Dayton, 
the  first  Republican  candidate  for  Vice-President. 
Virginia  sent  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter  and  James  M. 
Mason,  who  became  prominent  in  the  Confederacy. 
Mangum  and  Badger,  of  North  Carolina,  were  two 
strong  statesmen  from  the  South.  Calhoun's  col 
league  was  that  A.  P.  Butler  whom  Sumner  at 
tacked  so  viciously  that  Butler's  nephew,  Brooks, 
replied  with  a  cane.  Clay's  colleague  was  Joseph 
R.  Underwood,  a  man  of  many  abilities.  Tennes 
see  was  represented  by  another  coming  Presidential 
candidate,  John  Bell.  Thomas  Corwin,  of  Ohio, 
was  one  of  the  strongest  men  the  country  has 
produced,  and  might  have  been  President  except 
for  his  fatal  gift  of  humor.  His  associate  was  Sal 
mon  P.  Chase,  the  coming  Chief- Justice.  Clemens 
and  King,  of  Alabama,  the  latter  soon  to  be  chosen 
Vice-President  and  die  without  taking  office  ;  Atch- 
ison,  of  Missouri,  who  led  the  border  war  in  Kansas  ; 
Lewis  Cass,  perpetual  candidate  for  the  Presidency  ; 
Sam  Houston,  of  Texas,  who  had  been  a  corporal 
in  Benton's  regiment,  and  who  fought  compromise 
to  the  last ;  the  Dodges,  father  and  son,  from  Wis 
consin  and  Iowa  ;  and  Jones,  of  Iowa, — these  were 
some  of  the  men  of  ability  who  sat  together. x' 

But  there  were  three  young  men  who  were  des 
tined  soon  to  take  the  lead  in  politics,  and  to  dominate 
the  policies  of  parties,  and  make  more  history  than 
the  Triumvirate.  Jefferson  Davis  was  home  from 
the  Mexican  war  and  was  the  disciple  of  Calhoun, 
but  a  greater  force  than  his  teacher.  Davis  hooted 
at  nullification  as  an  impossibility.  He  accepted 
Calhoun's  argument,  and  substituted  for  his  conclu- 

335 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

sion  that  of  secession.  He  made  not  the  slightest 
concealment  of  his  purpose.  A  later  generation 
has  a  distorted  idea  of  Jefferson  Davis,  due  to 
animosities  growing  out  of  the  Civil  War.  At  this 
time  Davis  was  highly  esteemed  by  all  members 
of  the  Senate,  was  courtly  in  his  deportment,  and 
on  several  occasions  was  called  upon  to  make  an 
accommodation  between  fiery  spirits  of  various 
factions.  Later,  he  made  an  excellent  Secretary  of 
War,  and,  when  the  time  for  secession  came,  he 
went  into  it  willingly,  and  was  one  of  the  few  who 
believed  truly  there  was  to  be  a  long  and  bloody 
war.  Whatever  verdict  history  will  place  on  the 
career  of  Davis,  it  can  never  be  said  that  he  prac 
tised  deception.  He  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  Calhoun, 
but  he  had  the  courage  to  act  where  the  other 
had  only  the  thought. 

Stephen  A^JDouglas,  then  known  as  the  "  Little 
Giant,"  had  been  in  public  life  some  years,  but  was 
just  advancing  to  leadership.  He  was  a  forceful 
speaker,  though  not  so  dignified  as  the  Senate  pre 
ferred,  was  ambitious  of  the  Presidency,  and  cou 
rageous  enough  to  take  an  unpopular  side  if  it  were 
to  inhere  to  his  ultimate  political  advantage.  For 
ten  years  he  was  to  be  prominent  in  the  councils  of 
the  Democracy,  was  to  become  subservient  to  the 
slave-holding  section  up  to  the  very  last  concession, 
and,  on  that  last  point  of  issue,  was  to  split  the 
party  and  make  possible  the  election  of  his  old  rival, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  the  greatest  disciple  of  Henry 
Clay.  In  the  present  session,  Douglas  did  not 
figure  much  on  the  floor,  but  was  active  in  com 
mittee  and  cloak  room. 

The  last  of  this  coterie  was  the  youthful  ex- 
governor  of  New  York,  William  H.  Seward,  who 
alone  at  this  time  seems  to  have  haoTa  prevision  of 
coming  events.  He  was  a  free-soiler  and  more.  He 

336 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

was  to  shock  the  Senate  very  soon  by  his  "  Higher 
Law"  doctrine,  and  was  to  live  to  see  it  maintained 
in  blood,  with  himself  as  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
administration  of  Lincoln. 

To  these  should,  perhaps,  be  added  Salmon  P. 
Chase,  who,  with  all  his  great  abilities,  had  so  many 
failings  due  to  untrammelled  ambition.  The  House 
contained  many  other  brilliant  men  ;  but,  as  most  of 
the  talent  in  the  nation  seemed  to  be  in  the  Senate, 
it  was  impossible  that  the  lower  branch  should  shine 
by  comparison.  Nevertheless,  there  were  men  there 
already  famous,  and  others  soon  to  become  renowned. 
Horace  Mann  and  Robert  Winthrop,  of  Massachu 
setts  ;  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  was 
to  exercise  a  power  over  Congress  only  comparable 
to  that  which  Clay  had  wielded  for  so  many  years, 
and  David  Wilmot,  of  "Proviso"  fame,  also  of 
Pennsylvania ;  Robert  M.  McLane,  of  Maryland ; 
James  A.  Seddon,  of  Virginia  ;  James  L.  Orr,  of 
South  Carolina ;  Howell  Cobb,  Alexander  H.  Ste 
phens,  and  Robert  Toombs,  of  Georgia  ;  Joshua  R. 
Giddings,  in  a  sense  the  successor  of  John  Quincy 
Adams ;  Robert  C.  Schenck,  of  poker  fame,  of 
Ohio  ;  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  to  become 
President  when  Lincoln  died  ;  George  W.  Julian  and 
Joseph  E.  McDonald,  of  Indiana  ;  Edward  D.  Baker, 
of  Illinois,  the  bosom  friend  of  Lincoln,  soon  to  fall 
in  the  Civil  War ;  John  A.  McClernand,  destined  to 
fame  as  a  warrior,  and  "Long  John"  Wentworth,  also 
of  Illinois.  Altogether  there  were  a  dozen  men  in 
the  Houses  who  had  been  or  were  to  be  candidates 
for  national  nominations,  some  of  whom  were  to  suc 
ceed,  but  most  of  them  to  fail.  _  , 

The  nation  was  very  sick,  indeed,  and  there  were 
many  who  believed  it  beyond  all  recovery.  \lt  is 
difficult  at  this  day  to  appreciate  how  critical  was 
the  situation.  After  the  causes  are  plainly  stated, 

337 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  it  seems  as  if  there 
were  no  cause  for  alarm.  A  nation  that  survived 
the  Civil  War  ought  not  to  have  been  alarmed  at  the 
uproar  over  slavery  extension.  But  it  must  be  re 
membered  that  the  war  had  not  then  been  fought, 
and  it  was  not  certain  at  that  moment  whether,  if 
secession  were  entered  upon,  the  nation  would  have 
contested  it  with  vigor.  It  is  common  to  state  that 
the  ten  years  from  1850  to  1860  were  necessary  to 
educate  the  North  to  the  point  of  resistance.  It 
is  idle  to  speculate  on  what  might  have  happened. 
The  situation  in  1850  was  this  : 

The  Mexican  war,  brought  on  by  the  duplicity  of 
Calhoun  and  Tyler  for  the  express  purpose  of  slavery 
extension,  had  ended  in  enormous  additions  to  our 
territory.  In  California  had  been  discovered  more 
gold  than  had  ever  before  been  known  in  a  single 
locality.  New  Mexico  (then  including  Arizona) 
was  an  immense  territory  where  several  slave  States 
might  be  made,  and  Texas,  by  its  Constitution  and 
the  terms  of  admission,  might  resolve  itself  into  five 
commonwealths,  if  it  chose.  The  Mexican  War  had 
been  fought  almost  entirely  by  Southern  officers  and 
largely  by  Southern  volunteers.  It  was  an  unholy 
war  upon  a  friendly  nation  for  the  purpose  of  ravish 
ment. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  was  natural  that  the 
Southern  people  should  expect  most  of  the  spoil,  or 
at  least  a  large  share  of  it.  To  their  intense  indig 
nation  they  discovered  that  the  war  had  been  practi 
cally  in  vain,  so  far  as  the  extension  of  slavery  was 
concerned.  President  Taylor  had  sent  agents  to  New 
Mexico  and  California,  urging  them  to  adopt  Con 
stitutions  and  apply  for  statehood.  ]lt  was  found 
there  was  scarcely  a  corporal's  guard  of  Americans 
in  New  Mexico,  that  the  country  was  so  unproduc 
tive  there  was  little  chance  of  making  a  State  from 

338 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

it  in  many  years,  and  that  slavery  was  not  likely  to 
flourish  there  under  any  circumstances.  This  was  a 
disappointment,  but  when  the  Californians  met  and 
formed  a  Constitution  in  which  slavery  was  excluded 
by  all  but  a  unanimous  vote,  the  Calhoun  faction 
was  in  a  rage.  Was  California,  large  enough  for  a 
dozen  states,  to  fall  into  the  Union  as  free  soil  after 
all  the  sacrifices  and  treachery  employed  to  make 
her  slave  territory  ?  By  no  means  !  There  would 
be  another  war  before  that  was  conceded. 

Moreover,  President  Taylor  was  opposing  the  claims 
of  Texas  to  about  one-third  of  what  she  demanded 
as  her  soil.  It  is  true  the  claim  was  shadowy,  that 
Texas  originally  only  had  a  respectable  right  to 
about  one-half  of  what  now  constitutes  that  State  ; 
but,  in  true  buccaneer  fashion,  the  Texans  were  out 
for  all  that  could  be  secured,  and  talked  very  loudly 
of  what  they  would  do  if  opposed.  They  even 
raised  an  army  to  fight  the  Union,  and  then  thought 
better  of  it  ^X 

Territorially  speaking,  the  South  seemed  to  have 
lost  by  the  war,  and  the  prospects  for  the  future 
were  not  brilliant.  This  was  not  the  whole  of  the 
trouble.  The  Fugitive  Slave  law,  which  had  been 
in  existence  almost  from  the  beginning,  had  been 
rendered  nugatory  by  a  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  held  that,  while  the  local  authorities 
and  jails  might  be  used  in  capturing  and  incarcera 
ting  runaway  slaves  where  there  was  no  objection, 
the  law  did  not  compel  such  action.  As  in  most  of 
the  Northern  States  the  antislavery  sentiment  had 
been  fast  growing,  and  as  slave-catching  at  best  was 
considered  an  odious  business,  many  local  authori 
ties  declined  to  aid  the  Southern  authorities  and 
refused  the  use  of  jails  for  purposes  of  detention. 
As  the  Constitution  provided  for  the  return  of  such 
fugitives,  the  Southerners  now  demanded  a  law 

339 


THE  TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

which  should  be  stringent  and  effective  as  part  of 
the  compact  of  the  Union. 

There  was  one  other  grievance  connected  with 
slavery  which  the  Northern  people  entertained,  and 
it  was  forced  to  public  notice  after  many  years  of  agi 
tation.  Antislavery  petitions  began  to  come  to  the 
Senate  by  wagon-loads.  Most  of  these  asked  for 
abolition  in  the  District  oLjColumbia,  over  which 
Congress  had  jurisdiction.  Un  time  these  were  re 
jected,  or  cast  into  a  box  without  comment^  By 
this  time,  however,  there  was  at  least  a  well-defined 
sentiment,  to  which  many  slave-holders  adhered,  that 
the  spectacle  of  the  District  of  Columbia  as  a  leading 
slave-mart  of  the  country  was  undignified.  While 
the  abolitionists  of  the  North  considered  the  trade 
immoral,  many  of  the  slavery  partisans  of  the  South 
thought  it  might  be  well  to  give  a  sort  of  sop  to  the 
"incendiaries"  by  suppressing  the  slave-trade  in  the 
District,  though  not  preventing  the  holding  of  slaves. 

These  were  the  "five  bleeding  wounds"  of  the 
republic  as  Clay  called  them,  and  after  consultation 
with  Webster  and  Calhoun  he  made  his  plans. 
Rising  one  day  late  in  January,  1850,  in  the  Senate, 
he  spectacularly  waved  aloft  a  series  of  resolutions, 
which  he  had  prepared.  All  eyes  were  immediately 
riveted  on  him,  for  it  was  seen  by  his  manner  that 
he  had  something  important  on  hand.  For  every 
wound  Clay  had  a  plaster  as  follows  : 

Wound  Number  One. — California  to  be  admitted  as  a  free 
State.  There  seemed  no  help  for  this,  since  the  people  did 
not  want  slavery,  and  would  resent  any  effort  to  force  it  upon 
them  in  violation  of  those  "State's  rights,"  so  dear  to  the 
very  men  who  were  back  of  the  slavery  propaganda. 

Wound  Number  Two. — New  Mexico  and  Utah  to  be  ad 
mitted  as  Territories  without  specification  as  to  slavery,  that 
point  to  be  settled  by  the  people  at  the  time  of  application 
for  admission  as  States.  It  was  essential  that  something  be 
done  to  organize  New  Mexico,  where  the  military  were  in 

340 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

control,  in  constant  fear  of  a  conflict  with  the  Texans.  Utah 
also  needed  a  semblance  of  government,  as  the  Mormons 
had  been  squatters  there  for  years,  and  were  a  menace  to 
the  Argonauts  of  the  plains. 

Wound  Number  Three. — Texas  to  be  paid  a  number  of 
millions  of  dollars  (not  expressed  in  the  resolution)  as  a 
bribe  for  peace  and  in  lieu  of  her  outrageous  claims  to  terri 
tory. 

Wound  Number  Four. — A  more  efficient  fugitive-slave  law 
under  the  administration  of  the  Federal  courts  and  officials. 

Wound  Number  Five. — Abolition  of  the  slave-trade  in  the 
District _o£Colurnbia,  with  an  expressed  determination  not  to 
interfere  with  the  interstate  slave-trade. 


These  resolutions  were  to  be  embodied  in  a  single 
bill,  and  adherence  to  the  compromises  was  held 
up  as  the  sole  chance  of  saving  the  Union.  At  first 
there  were  misgivings  at  the  proposals.  Many  liked 
one  or  several  of  the  propositions  ;  no  one  liked 
them  all.  Clay  had  undertaken  a  herculean  task, 
and  it  seemed  for  a  time  as  if  it  would  be  impossible 
to  get  the  bills  under  way.  When  Foote,  of  Missis 
sippi,  moved  for  a  grand  committee  to  be  elected 
by  the  Senate,  great  was  Clay's  chagrin  to  find  that 
he  had  not  been  chosen  a  member.  It  was  only 
the  magnanimity  of  Webster  that  led  him  to  change 
his  vote  and  secure  Clay  a  place  on  what  would 
otherwise  have  been  a  farcical  committee.  The 
committee,  with  Clay  as  chairman,  well  represented 
all  portions  of  the  country.  As  a  result  of  its  efforts, 
a  bill  of  thirty-nine  sections  was  reported,  which 
embodied  three  of  the  compromises  Clay  had  origi 
nally  offered.  The  two  others  were  made  separate 
measures. 

Then  the  flood-gates  of  oratory  were  opened, 
and  if  words  could  have  been  effective,  something 
important  must  have  resulted.  Never  before  nor 
since  have  as  many  men  of  great  talent  expressed 
themselves  so  freely  on  the  whole  state  of  the  Union, 


THE   TRUE    HENRY   CLAY 

— for  in  the  course  of  debate  there  was  no  attempt 
to  confine  remarks  closely  to  the  subject  in  hand. 
The  whole  political  situation  was  threshed  over. 
Everything  was  said  on  every  side  of  the  questions 
at  issue. 

Clay  led  off  the  debate  in  a  two-days'  speech, 
on  February  6-7,  before  the  committee  of  thirteen 
was  organized. 

It  is  impossible  to  contemplate  this  last  great 
fight  of  Clay  without  emotion.  TJwo  years  later  he 
was  dead,  and  the  Senators  now  engaged  in  angry 
dispute  with  him  vied  with  each  other  in  testimonials 
to  his  bigness  of  soul,  his  largeness  of  spirit,  and  his 
individuality.  These  qualities  were  apparent  in  the 
great  debate  which  consumed  months., j;  Like  most 
men  of  exceeding  sanguine  temperament,  Clay  was 
subject  to  fits  of  intense  depression.  He  never  felt 
so  pessimistic  as  at  this  time.  His  efforts  to  save 
the  Union  were  absolutely  sincere,  and  he  undoubt 
edly  hastened  the  end  of  his  life  in  the  struggle 
which  ensued.  Knowing  that  he  was  to  speak,  the 
Senate  chamber  was  crowded  ;  women  contended  for 
places  in  the  gallery,  and  never  did  a  Senator 
address  a  more  distinguished  audience.  Clay  was 
accompanied  from  the  hotel  by  the  chaplain  of  the 
Senate,  and  walked  with  such  evident  pain  and 
coughed  so  much,  that  an  effort  was  made  to  have 
him  desist  from  the  effort.  No  such  considerations 
moved  him.  He  was  helped  up  the  steps  slowly 
by  the  chaplain,  stopping  frequently  to  cough  and 
then  to  get  his  breath.  When  he  took  his  seat,  it 
was  apparent  to  all  that  he  was  almost  in  the  last 
stages  of  life,  and  great  concern  was  manifested  by 
his  colleagues  over  his  condition.  He  refused  all 
efforts  at  adjournment,  and,  at  the  appointed  time, 
rose  in  his  place  and  began  that  memorable  address 
which  lasted  through  two  days. 

342 


HENRY    CLAY    AND    WIFE 

(From  a  daguerrotype  taken  about  the  time  of  their 
golden  wedding.  In  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H. 
Clay,  Lexington,  Kentucky,  and  reproduced  espe 
cially  for  this  volume. ) 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

Many  eyes  were  suffused  with  tears  as  the  old  man 
straightened  himself  to  his  full  height  and  began  his 
speech.  It  was  almost  like  seeing  a  ghost  come 
back  to  speak.  Clay  alone  of  those  who  were  gath 
ered  there  was  born  in  the  throes  of  the  Revolution. 
He  alone  had  seen  British  redcoats  marauding  the 
countiy,  and  he  had  seen  one  stick,  in  wanton  sacri 
lege,  his  naked  sword  into  the  grave  of  the  father 
who  had  been  buried  a  few  hours  before.  He  had 
witnessed  all  the  changes  which  had  come  since  the 
nation  was  born.  He  had  been  in  public  life  almost 
half  a  century, — before  many  of  his  colleagues  were 
born,  and  even  those  who  had  differed  from  him 
could  not  but  admire  the  man  who,  in  his  age,  had 
come  to  heal  the  wounds  of  the  nation  he  loved  so 
well. 

He  began  with  some  reference  to  his  age  and 
infirmities,  and  the  long  career  which  he  had  spent 
in  public  life.  It  was  known  that  he  had  given  a 
grudging  assent  to  the  election  of  Taylor,  but  he 
had  offered  no  factious  opposition.  That  he  was 
now  to  openly  oppose  the  known  wishes  of  the 
administration  had  led  many  to  think  he  might  still 
be  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  He  replied  to 
these  in  language  not  quite  as  explicit  as  he  might 
have  used,  but  more  so  than  he  gave  voice  to  after 
wards.  He  said  : 


' '  Sir,  what  vicissitudes  do  we  not  pass  through  in  this  short 
mortal  career  of  ours  ?  Eight  years,  or  nearly  eight  years  ago, 
I  took  my  leave  finally  and,  as  I  supposed,  forever  from 
this  body.  At  that  time  I  did  not  conceive  the  possibility  of 
ever  again  returning  to  it.  And  if  my  private  wishes  and 
particular  inclinations,  and  the  desire  during  the  short  rem 
nant  of  my  days  to  remain  in  quiet  and  repose,  could  have 
prevailed,  you  would  never  have  seen  me  occupying  the  seat 
which  I  now  occupy  on  this  floor.  The  Legislature  of  the 
State  to  which  I  belong,  unsolicited  by  me,  chose  to  desig 
nate  me  for  this  station,  and  I  have  come  here,  sir,  in  obe- 

343 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

dience  to  a  sense  of  stern  duty,  with  no  personal  objects,  no 
pride  of  view,  now  or  hereafter,  to  gratify.  I  know,  sir,  the 
jealousies,  the  fears,  the  apprehensions  which  are  engen 
dered  by  the  existence  of  that  party  spirit  to  which  I  have 
referred  ;  but  if  there  be  in  my  hearing  now,  in  or  out  of  this 
capitol,  any  one  who  hopes,  in  his  race  for  honors  and  ele 
vation  for  higher  honors  and  higher  elevation  than  that 
which  he  now  occupies,  I  beg  him  to  believe  that  I,  at  least, 
will  never  jostle  him  in  the  pursuit  of  those  honors  or  that 
elevation.  I  beg  him  to  be  perfectly  persuaded  that,  if  my 
wishes  prevail,  my  name  shall  never  be  used  in  competition 
with  his.  I  beg  to  assure  him  that,  when  my  service  is  ter 
minated  in  this  body,  my  mission,  so  far  as  respects  the 
public  affairs  of  this  world  and  upon  this  earth,  is  closed, 
and  closed,  if  my  wishes  prevail,  forever." 

In  this  he  spoke  with  intense  earnestness,  but  it 
is  impossible  to  believe  that  he  would  have  declined 
a  still  further  call  had  it  come  to  him  from  the 
country,  and  had  he  seemed  to  himself  to  have  any 
chances  of  success. 

After  a  pause  he  discussed  each  of  his  proposi 
tions  in  turn  fully,  and  by  this  time  all  semblance 
of  weakness  had  disappeared.  The  fire  burned  in 
his  eyes,  his  soul  was  lifted  up,  and  he  spoke 
fluently,  eloquently,  and  without  apparent  fatigue 
for  three  hours,  during  which  time  he  was  frequently 
interrupted.  Declining  a  chance  to  end  for  the  day, 
he  finished  the  first  half  of  his  speech  amid  a  burst 
of  applause,  and  then  there  was  a  scene  such  as  the 
Senate  had  never  seen  before.  Men  ran  to  grasp 
his  hand,  and  women  vied  with  each  other  in  a 
desire  to  kiss  his  tear-stained  cheeks. 

The  next  day  he  delivered  the  last  half  of  his 
argument,  and  it  was,  in  many  respects,  more  im 
portant  than  the  first.  He  explained  his  views 
freely  on  all  points,  answered  questions,  engaged 
in  colloquies,  and  sat  down  only  to  have  the  scenes 
of  the  previous  day  repeated. 

The  debate  soon  became  general,  and  when  the 
344 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

committee  of  thirteen  finally  reported  what  was 
facetiously  called  the  Omnibus  Bill,  putting  all  terri 
torial  questions  in  one  measure,  it  was  continued 
with  renewed  vigor.  In  the  debate  which  followed 
a  few  speeches  were  notable.  Calhoun,  with  one 
foot  in  the  grave  into  which  he  was  to  sink  in  a 
few  days,  announced  his  adherence  to  the  compro 
mises,  for  which  he  cared  little,  in  a  speech  which 
he  prepared  in  his  chamber,  but  was  too  ill  to 
deliver.  It  was  read  by  a  fellow-senator,  Calhoun 
being  present,  as  has  been  remarked,  "  like  a  dis 
embodied  spirit."  Calhoun's  last  legacy  to  his 
country  was  a  demand  that  there  be  a  complete 
reversal  of  existing  conditions,  and  there  be  set  up 
a  sort  of  dual  government  by  which  no  legislation 
was  to  be  passed  without  the  consent  of  a  dual 
executive,  one  from  the  slave  and  one  from  the  free 
States.  Though  he  professed  to  love  the  Union,  he 
insisted  that  it  never  could  be  saved  by  putting  it 
on  a  pedestal  and  worshipping  it  as  "  glorious."  The 
speech  had  little  effect,  for  Calhoun  was  now  not 
only  almost  a  corpse,  but  completely  a  political  or 
phan.  He  had  educated  men  who  would  carry  out 
his  theories  to  their  legitimate  conclusion. 

Webster  rose  on  the  seventh  of  March  to  deliver 
that  speech  which  wounded  the  antislavery  men  to 
the  quick,  and  made  them  feel  that  the  "god-like 
statesman"  had  been  consorting  with  emissaries  of 
the  devil.  He  was  for  the  compromises,  and,  in  a 
pessimistic  tone  so  different  from  that  of  twenty  years 
before,  when  he  electrified  the  nation  in  his  reply  to 
Hayne,  he  seemed  to  fear  that  the  nation  was 
tottering.  It  was  not  so  much  the  matter  as  the 
manner  of  his  speech  which  offended  New  England, 
and  from  that  day  to  his  death  Webster  was  no 
true  son  of  Massachusetts,  according  to  the  senti 
ment  of  the  rising  generation.  He  was  soon  to  go 

345 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

into  Fillmore's  cabinet  to  fight  him  for  the  succession, 
and  finally  to  die  a  disappointed  man. 

Davis,  of  Mississippi,  opposed  the  compromises 
on  the  ground  that  slavery  was  attacked  by  the 
North  as  an  immoral  institution.  He  declared  that 
slavery  was  sanctioned  by  God  and  the  Bible,  and 
that  it  needed  no  other  approval,  and  wound  up 
by  saying  that  never,  under  any  circumstances, 
would  he  accept  any  compromise  that  did  not  ex 
tend  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific, 
making  one  California  State  slave. 

Benton,  rugged,  defiant,  Union-loving,  and  san 
guine,  did  not  admit  there  was  anything  to  com 
promise.  He  wanted  California  admitted  as  a  free 
State,  and  agreed  with  President  Taylor  that  it  was 
wrong  to  bring  California  in  with  all  the  sins  of 
other  States  upon  her  back.  He  declared  against 
compromise,  and  denied  there  was  any  occasion  for 
the  pessimistic  tone  of  his  colleagues.  He  said  that 
he  considered  slavery  a  great  evil,  although  he  was 
himself  a  slave-holder. 

The  most  effective  speech  in  its  consequences 
was  that  of  Seward,  the  rising  star  of  free  soil 
Whigs,  who  opposed  the  compromises,  and  declared 
that  there  was  a  higher  law  of  conduct  than  the 
Constitution.  This  was  taken  by  many  to  mean 
that  the  right  of  private  judgment  was  paramount  to 
the  law,  but  this  was  not  his  meaning.  The  utter 
ance  cost  him  the  friendship  of  many  public  men, 
and  really  defeated  him  for  the  nomination  in  1 860, 
which  Lincoln  bore  away  when  it  seemed  as  if  it 
was  in  the  New  Yorker's  grasp. 

Taylor  was  resolute  against  the  compromises, 
and  if  the  bill  had  passed  in  his  lifetime  he  would 
certainly  have  vetoed  it  He  urged  his  followers  to 
stand  firm  and  not  give  in  to  nullifiers  or  secessionists. 
There  was  indeed  a  danger.  At  Nashville  there  was 

346 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

a  convention  of  Southern  men  representing  a  num 
ber  of  States  who  openly  talked  secession,  and  there 
were  timid  souls  who  feared  the  determination 
would  be  made  and  carried  out.  Taylor  stated 
openly  that,  if  such  action  was  taken,  he  would  lead 
an  army  of  Southern  troops  and  put  down  secession, 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  he  would  have 
tried  or  little  that  he  would  have  succeeded  had  he 
lived. 

Clay's  relations  with  Taylor  were  cold  and  formal 
throughout  his  brief  administration.  iHe  naturally  felt 
aggrieved  that  he  had  been  passed  over  for  the 
warrior,  but  he  showed  no  resentment.  He  could 
not  this  time  appear  as  the  chief  champion  of  the 
party,  for  he  looked  upon  Taylor  not  as  a  Whig  but 
a  sort  of  adventurer.  He  was  deprived  of  the  nomi 
nation  largely  through  the  efforts  of  his  best  friend, 
Senator  J.  J.  Crittenden,  who  wanted  Clay  to  be  Presi 
dent,  but  did  not  think  he  could  be  elected.  Never 
theless,  Clay  helped  Crittenden  all  he  could,  and  on 
his  dying  bed  besought  his  children  to  be  kind  to  him, 
though  for  a  short  time  there  had  been  an  estrange 
ment  between  them.  J^Taylor  asked  no  advice  of 
Clay,  and  he  offered  none,  feeling  that  they  were 
diametrically  opposed  in  policy.  Yet  Clay  made  a 
speech  in  1850,  in  which  he  paid  a  glowing  tribute 
to  Taylor,  whom  he  had  known  almost  from  boy 
hood,  and  greatly  esteemed  as  a  soldier.  \  For  some 
reason,  not  entirely  clear,  he  seems  to  have  thought 
that  Taylor  did  not  give  his  son,  Henry  Clay,  Jr.,  the 
opportunities  he  might  have  had.  When  he  heard 
a  member  of  the  Cabinet  (though  without  authority 
from  Taylor  or  any  one  else)  say  that,  because  his 
son  James  B.  Clay  had  been  given  a  diplomatic  mis 
sion,  his  (Henry  Clay's)  mouth  should  be  shut,  he 
was  for  the  moment  wroth.  Then,  as  was  a  charac 
teristic  of  him,  he  forgot  all  about  it  He  fought 

347 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Taylor's  policy  to  the  end,  and  was  one  of  those  who 
thought  that  his  death  was  a  happy  deliverance  of 
the  republic  from  a  terrible  crisis. 

The  debate  dragged  on  for  weary  weeks.  Clay 
bore  the  brunt  of  the  fight,  though  at  times  he  was 
necessarily  absent.  He  spoke  nearly  one  hundred 
times  on  some  phase  of  the  bill,  usually  briefly. 
On  one  occasion  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the 
Territories  was  being  discussed,  and  he  declared 
that  Whigs  and  others  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso 
ought  not  to  complain  as  the  bill  gave  them  more 
than  that  resolution  intended,  and  that  there  was  no 
slavery  in  the  Territories,  and  none  probable,  as 
climatic  conditions  were  against  it.  Webster,  in  his 
great  speech,  had  taken  the  same  ground,  saying  that 
it  was  unnecessary  to  re-enact  a  law  of  God,  and 
Seward  had  replied  that  whenever  he  found  a  law  of 
God  he  certainly  wanted  it  incorporated  in  legisla 
tion.  When  Clay  was  besought  to  admit  slavery 
into  the  Territories,  he  made  that  declaration  which 
will  always  be  remembered  : 

' '  Coming  from  a  slave  State  as  I  do,  I  owe  it  to  myself,  I 
owe  it  to  truth,  I  owe  it  to  the  subject  to  say  that  no 
earthly  power  could  induce  me  to  vote  for  a  specific  measure 
for  the  introduction  of  slavery  where  it  had  not  before  ex 
isted,  either  South  or  North  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
line." 

Had  Clay  spoken  thus  in  1844,  nothing  could 
have  prevented  him  from  becoming  President. 

Considering  that  the  compromise  bills  included 
the  most  important  legislation  enacted  in  history  up 
to  that  time  ;  that,  in  some  particulars,  they  were 
assailed  by  nearly  every  Senator  on  the  floor  ;  that 
it  took  six  months  to  secure  final  action,  and  that 
Clay  was  seventy-four  years  old  and  feeble,  his  ex 
ertions  were  no  less  than  marvellous.  Time  and 

348 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

again  he  was  asked  to  abandon  the  leadership 
which  he  constantly  exercised  while  present.  On 
only  a  few  days  was  he  absent,  confined  to  his 
room  by  the  cough  that  was  growing  worse.  In 
one  of  those  absences,  the  Senate  changed  the 
provisions  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  so  that  trial 
by  jury  for  the  slave  was  eliminated,  and  either  Clay 
was  not  informed  of  this,  or  it  escaped  his  mind 
for  some  time.  He  requested  that  it  be  changed, 
as  he  had  in  youth  and  old  age  frequently  defended 
slaves,  and  never  for  a  consideration. 

In  defending  this  particular  measure  Clay  made 
a  statement  which  is  of  peculiar  interest  in  these 
days.  He  said  the  people  of  the  North  looked  upon 
the  slavery  question  as  one  of  sentiment,  while  in  the 
South  it  affected  the  wives,  children,  and  hearthstones 
of  everyone.  While  objecting  to  slavery  as  a  prin 
ciple,  he  defended  it  in  practise,  declaring  that  the 
meanest  thing  a  man  could  do  was  to  seduce  from 
masters  or  mistresses  the  household  slaves  which 
were  a  part  of  the  family  and  treated  with  kindness. 
He  also  insisted  that  a  man  who  harbored  a  runaway 
slave  was  as  bad  as  the  man  who  deliberately  stole 
one  from  a  plantation.  \This  was  extreme  ground, 
more  advance^  than  he  would  have  taken  many 
years  previous^  He  instanced  the  fact  that  one  of 
his  household  slaves  had  been  induced  to  run  away, 
and,  that  after  some  years  of  dissatisfaction  in  the 
North,  she  had  sent  to  her  mistress  for  money  so  that 
she  might  return  to  slavery.  JThe  trouble  with 
Clay's  argument  here  was,  that  it  showed  not  only 
the  brighter  side  of  slavery,  but  it  dealt  with  an 
institution  which  was  different  in  Kentucky  from 
what  it  was  in  the  cotton  belt 

Nevertheless,  to  blame  Clay  severely  for  his  con 
duct  at  that  time  is  assuming  a  great  deal.  It  is  too 
commonly  taken  for  granted  by  those  who  discuss 

349 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

slavery,  that  the  mere  striking  off  the  shackles  from 
the  slaves  settled  the  whole  race  question.  It  should 
be  realized  that  we  are  now  face  to  face  with  one 
only  less  serious  than  slavery  itself,  and  concerning 
which  there  seems  to  be  as  little  agreement  as  to  ac 
tion  as  there  was  in  1850  over  slavery.  Clay  wanted 
to  go  surely  even  if  slowly. 

He  was,  in  fact,  in  a  very  embarrassing  position. 
He  was  accused  by  the  North  of  surrendering  every 
thing  to  the  South.  He  was  accused  by  the  South 
of  surrendering  everything  to  the  North.  He  was 
obliged  to  make  the  statement  that  he  considered 
that  the  North  made  most  of  the  sacrifices.  This 
was  in  accordance  with  his  constant  plan  to  make 
concessions  to  the  South. 

In  the  course  of  the  debate  he  had  a  colloquy  with 
nearly  every  Senator  on  the  floor,  sometimes  cour 
teous,  and  often  to  the  contrary.  With  Senator 
Hale  he  had  a  bitter  bout  over  the  subject  of  ab 
olition.  It  seemed  that  some  Southern  Senator 
had  called  Clay  an  abolitionist.  This,  Hale  re 
sented.  Clay  expressed  once  more  his  opinion 
of  the  abolitionists,  which  was  anything  but  fa 
vorable,  and  wished  that  those  who  accused  him 
of  predilections  in  their  favor  could  see  the 
basketful  of  papers  which  he  received  weekly, 
in  which  he  was  more  abused  than  any  other  man 
in  America. 

Benton,  who  was  strong  in  his  opposition  to  the 
compromises  and  insistent  that  California  be  ad 
mitted  as  a  free  State  without  regard  to  any  other 
consideration,  was  accused  by  Clay  of  having 
changed  his  views  on  the  subject  He  alleged  that 
the  year  previous  he  thought  California  ought  to 
wait.  The  dispute  arose  over  a  letter  that  had  been 
published  in  a  Missouri  newspaper.  A  colloquy 
occurred. 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

BENTON  :  "  I  consider  him  (Clay)  the  author  of  that  letter. 
He  has  adopted  it.     He  has  produced  it  in  the  American 
Senate.     He  has  read  it  here,  and  as  his  letter,  I  brand  it  as 
a  most  infamous  calumny  ;  and  with  that  brand  upon  it,  it 
shall  go  upon  the  parliamentary  history  of  the  country." 
A  SENATOR  :   "  Call  him  to  order." 
THE  VICE-PRESIDENT  :   ' '  The  Senator  is  not  in  order. ' ' 
BENTON  :   "  Everybody  is  in  order  but  me.     Everybody  is 
in  order  to  attack  me  ;  but  I  am  not  in  order  to  defend  my 
self.     He   must   take   care   how   he   produces   such   things 
against  me. ' ' 

THE  VICE-PRESIDENT  :  "  The  Senator  is  not  in  order." 
CLAY  :  "I  shall  only  say,  that  I  repel  with  scorn  and  in 
dignation  the  imputation  that  I  am  the  author  of  that  letter. 
I  hurl  it  back  to  him  that  he  may  put  it  in  his  casket  of 
calumnies,  where  he  has  many  other  things  of  the  same 
sort. ' ' 

THE  VICE-PRESIDENT  :   ' '  The  Senator  is  not  in  order. ' ' 
BENTON  :   "You  hurl  it  back,  but  I  got  it  on  you  first." 
THE  VICE-PRESIDENT  :   ' '  Order  must  be  restored  in  the 
hall." 

WEBSTER  :  "I  have  only  risen  to  say,  that  I  am  exceed 
ingly  pained  that  such  occurrences  should  take  place  in  the 
Senate." 

BENTON  :   "  Oh,  it  is  damnable." 

This  indicates  that  the  old  man  was  still  keen  in 
his  perceptions  and  ready  for  any  encounter.  Clay 
was  more  irritated  by  Benton  than  by  any  other 
Senator.  He  had  just  become  reconciled  to  him 
after  years  of  "  non-intercourse,"  but  fire  continued 
to  flash  when  they  met  in  debate.  Benton  was  a 
man  of  enlarged  views  and  strong  patriotism,  but 
had  an  immense  amount  of  egotism,  was  pompous, 
and  because  of  his  long  service  liked  to  lecture  every 
one  in  the  Senate,  Clay  included.  As  Clay  had 
been  in  the  Senate  when  Benton  was  a  mere  boy,  he 
resented  such  conduct,  and  frequent  were  the  clashes 
between  them.  In  no  case  did  Clay  ever  pick  a 
quarrel,  but  once  entered  upon  one,  he  gave  his  an 
tagonist  all  the  trouble  possible. 

His  last  great  speech  was  made  on  the  twenty- 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

second  of  July,  nine  days  before  the  defeat  of  the  bill. 
Perhaps  there  is  nothing  which  he  has  left  on  record 
that  so  vitally  expresses  the  man  and  his  views  on  the 
whole  state  of  the  Union.  Beginning  with  another 
reference  to  his  advanced  age  and  infirmities  he  made 
one  more  plea  for  the  measures.  He  insisted  that 
he  was  not  pessimistic  in  believing  the  prevailing 
tranquillity  to  be  only  temporary  and  that  a  storm  was 
arising.  In  this  speech  he  was  more  severe  on  the 
radical  Southern  statesmen  than  formerly,  and  he 
not  only  besought  them,  but  lectured  them  sharply. 
He  told  them  their  theory  that  slavery  was  a  na 
tional  institution  was  ridiculous,  and  that  they  never 
could  maintain  it ;  that  if  they  seceded  to  estab 
lish  that  principle  there  would  be  three  American 
republics,  and  the  South  would  be  at  the  mercy  of 
the  strongest. 

All  was  in  vain.  The  compromises  were  not  as  a 
whole  agreeable  to  the  majority. 

Events  of  the  session  were  not  confined  to  oratory. 
Foote,  of  Mississippi,  a  small  man  with  a  large  tem 
per,  thought  that  Benton  intended  to  assault  him 
on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  and  drew  a  loaded  pistol 
and  pointed  it  at  his  antagonist.  Benton  was  un 
armed,  and  Clay  interfered  to  prevent  a  shot  which 
might  have  thrown  the  whole  nation  into  paroxysms. 
Foote  originally  had  been  against  the  compromises, 
but  had  been  converted  by  Clay.  This  affray  caused 
a  great  deal  of  excitement,  and  there  was  a  desire 
to  hurry  matters.  "^ 

Death  intervenetl  to  settle  the  problem.  Taylor 
died  suddenly  in  July,  and  Fillmore,  who  was  favor 
able  to  the  compromises,  became  President  Even 
this  seemed  of  no  avail  at  first.  When  the  voting 
began,  section  after  section  was  struck  out  until 
at  last  there  was  left  nothing  but  the  clause  re 
lating  to  a  Territorial  government  for  Utah.  In 

352 


THE    COMPROMISES    OF    1850 

disgust,  Clay  left  the  capital  for  Newport,  fearful 
that  the  end  of  the  republic  had  come,  and  that 
all  his  efforts  had  been  in  vain.  As  he  sat  on  the 
beach  and  looked  out  upon  the  waves,  which  seemed 
to  beckon  him  to  his  rest,  he  must  have  felt  that  his 
life  had  indeed  been  a  failure,  since  not  only  had  he 
been  disappointed  in  his  personal  hopes,  but  had  lost 
his  last  fight  to  save  the  Union  he  loved.  If  the 
iron  of  despair  ever  entered  his  soul,  it  must  have 
been  then,  though  it  was  only  for  the  hour.  Soon 
he  recovered  his  spirits,  and  a  way  was  found  to 
accomplish  his  purposes,  though  a  different  way 
from  that  which  he  had  intended. 

'Though  there  was  no  majority  for  the  bill  as  a 
wnole,  there  was  a  majority  of  varying  composition 
for  each  of  Clay's  "plasters,"  and  they  were  passed 
rather  hurriedly  in  view  of  the  length  of  the  fight 
which  had  killed  the  Omnibus  Bill.,  Most  of  this 
was  done  in  his  three  weeks'  absence., -' 

Clay,  though  in  a  physically  weak  condition,  sur 
mounted  all  difficulties.  He  made  the  greatest 
contest  of  his  life,  sitting  throughout  nearly  every 
session,  and  rising  often  to  speak  or  interrupt  Sena 
tors.  There  were  times,  too,  when  the  old  man 
had  relief  from  pain  and  went  into  the  society  which 
always  lionized  him.  It  is  reported  by  one  observer 
that,  at  such  times,  the  belles  of  Washington  crowded 
around  Clay  and  would  not  leave  until  they  had  been 
kissed.  While  his  physique  was  often  weak,  there 
was  at  no  time  any  deterioration  of  his  intellectual 
vigor.  In  the  Senate  the  situation  was  such  that  his 
wit  was  seldom  exercised,  but  among  his  friends  and 
admirers  it  is  reported  that  he  was  at  his  best,  though 
often  after  such  meetings  he  would  go  home  to  a 
sleepless  night. 

There  were  many  times  when  friends  and  oppo 
nents  thought  he  would  fall  in  his  place,  yet  he  tired 
23  353 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

out  some  of  the  most  vigorous.  \Qne  young  Senator 
from  the  South  remarked  : 

"  I  was  born  after  Henry  Clay  entered  the  Senate, 
and  have  always  been  esteemed  for  my  powers  of 
endurance,  but  the  'Old  Oak  of  Kentucky'  still 
makes  me  seem  like  a  sapling." 

One  day  his  servant  told  some  friends,  who  called 
on  their  way  to  the  capitol,  that  Clay  was  deter 
mined  to  go  to  the  chamber  that  day,  though  he  had 
been  awake  all  night  in  an  agony  of  distress  with  his 
cough.  Two  of  them  marched  to  his  room  and  told 
Clay  frankly  that,  as  his  superiors  in  physique  only, 
they  must  insist  that  he  remain  at  home.  Clay  rose 
in  indignation,  put  on  his  hat  and  cloak  without 
assistance,  and  stalked  from  the  room  with  a  counte 
nance  that  was  formidable.  He  rode  to  the  capitol, 
but  stood  on  his  feet  for  an  hour,  answering  ques 
tions  and  parrying  thrusts. 

Clay's  last  connection  with  legislation  of  any 
prominence  was  with  the  Fugitive  Slave  law.  He 
spoke  once  or  twice  in  the  next  session,  but  only 
appeared  in  the  chamber  at  a  single  session  of  the 
Senate  which  met  December,  1851.  He  had  in 
tended  to  resign,  and  had  so  expressed  himself. 
He  was  anxious  to  get  back  to  Ashland,  but  he  had 
become  impressed  with  the  fact  that  the  compromises 
were  far  from  being  satisfactory  to  the  country,  and 
he  resolved  at  any  cost  to  stick  to  the  last  at  his 
post.  With  forty-four  other  prominent  members  of 
Congress  he  signed  a  statement  that  he  would  sup 
port  no  man  for  high  office  who  did  not  adhere  to 
the  compromises.  National  and  State  conventions 
passed  resolutions  more  or  less  to  this  effect,  yet  the 
laws  were  not  on  the  statute  books  before  they  began 
to  make  trouble,  and,  in  the  end,  produced  that 
cleavage  which  resulted  in  the  Republican  party, 
the  secession  party,  and  the  Civil  War. 

354 


THE   COMPROMISES   OF    1850 

The  so-called  compromises  of  1850  were  not 
such  in  any  proper  meaning  of  the  word.  They 
were  expedients  which  proved  abortive.  The  ma 
jority  of  the  people  at  the  time  were  opposed  to 
slavery  extension  or  to  yielding  anything  to  the 
Southern  propaganda.  The  admission  of  California 
made  the  free  States  one  in  the  majority,  but  it  was 
long  ere  the  Senate  was  in  sympathy  with  the  radical 
views  of  the  North.  In  the  popular  branch  oppo 
sition  to  slavery  and  all  its  works  grew  rapidly.  It 
may  be  said  that  it  was  not  entirely  rational  in  all 
respects  ;  that  those  who  were  so  anxious  to  get  rid 
of  slavery  or  to  repress  it  were  frequently  lacking 
in  tact  and  wisdom.  It  ought  also  to  be  said  that 
the  same  was  true,  in  a  larger  sense,  of  the  Southern 
statesmen  who  worked  themselves  up  into  a  perfect 
frenzy  on  the  subject.  Immediately  Congress  began 
to  tamper  with  the  compromises,  to  dispute  as  to 
their  interpretation,  and  the  subject  of  slavery,  which 
Clay  hoped  had  been  put  to  sleep  for  generations, 
was  soon  the  burning,  indeed  almost  the  only  issue 
in  politics. 

But  to  be  just  to  Clay,  it  was  not  his  fault  that  the 
compromises  failed.  It  may  have  been  his  misfor 
tune  to  have  been  called  upon  to  compose  differ 
ences  which  were  irreconcilable.  It  is  not  likely 
there  was  any  other  man  in  the  country  who  could 
have  accomplished  anything.  It  was  because  of  his 
long  services,  his  known  abilities,  his  upright  char 
acter,  and  his  extraordinary  psychological  qualities 
that  Clay  was  forced  by  circumstances  to  take  the 
lead.  It  would  be  rash  to  contend  that  the  com- k 
promises  were  of  no  value.  They  gave  a  new 
starting-point  in  politics.  They  fixed  a  standard 
from  which  men  of  all  parties  could  take  their  bear 
ings,  and,  under  the  controlling  law  of  conserva 
tism,  they  made  disunion  impossible  for  a  decade. 

355 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

Whether  it  would  have  been  better  to  have  fought 
it  out  in  1850,  rather  than  wait,  is  one  of  the  things 
upon  which  men  differ.  What  we  do  know  is  that 
when  the  contest  came  the  Union  was  preserved, 
and  Clay  cannot  be  denied  the  credit  of  having  been 
a  large  factor  in  its  preservation,  though  his  body 
then  lay  in  the  grave,  while  his  soul  was  marching  on 
to  that  victory  to  witness  which  would  have  com 
pensated  him  for  all  his  labors  and  disappointments. 
However  he  may  have  erred  in  some  particulars,  he 
did  not  live  in  vain. 


356 


XXV 

PRESERVER    OF    THE    UNION 

"If  any  one  desires  to  know  the  leading  and  paramount 
object  of  my  public  life,  the  preservation  of  the  Union  will 
furnish  him  the  key. ' ' 

THIS  was  the  utterance  of  Henry  Clay  near  the 
close  of  his  life,  and  it  was  true  to  his  endeavor. 
However  large  a  place  personal  ambitions  may  seem 
to  have  had  in  his  career,  they  were  always  subordi 
nate  to  his  love  of  the  Union  and  his  desire  to  main 
tain  it.  For  this  desire  he  sacrificed  much  that 
was  dear.  It  was  characteristic  of  him  that  he  took 
much  counsel  of  his  fears.  He  never  believed  that  in 
his  day  the  Union  had  been  established  as  thoroughly 
as  was  necessary.  His  efforts  were  constantly  direct 
ed  towards  tightening  the  bonds.  It  is  difficult  for 
that  generation  which  has  grown  up  since  the  Civil 
War  to  appreciate  how  experimental  the  republic 
was  considered  for  many  decades.  At  the  start  the 
Constitution  was  looked  upon  askance  by  many,  if 
not  by  most  of  the  leading  men  of  the  country.  It 
was  accepted  simply  because  there  must  be  some 
thing  done  to  escape  chaos.  No  sacredness  attached 
to  that  document.  In  the  early  days,  separation 
was  freely  talked  of,  and  without  causing  comment. 
New  England  became  disaffected  in  the  second  war 
with  Great  Britain,  and  her  course  was  deprecated, 
but  it  was  not  considered  extraordinary.  Clay,  who 
had  seen  the  country  develop  from  infancy,  was 
greatly  attached  to  it  not  only  because  his  cast  of 
mind  favored  a  strong  national  government,  but  be- 

357 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

cause  his  imagination  and  his  affections  were  stirred 
by  the  present  worth  and  the  coming  glories  of  the 
great  republic. 

However,  he  too  well  understood  the  temper  of 
the  times  to  believe  that  affection  for  the  Constitu 
tion  was  general.  In  his  despondency  he  over 
estimated  the  separation  sentiment  or  paid  too  much 
attention  to  the  boasts  and  threats  of  States  or  states 
men.  He  was  at  all  times  the  ardent  champion  of 
the  Union,  drove  Congress  into  declaring  war,  and 
was  willing  to  fight  on  after  others  were  ready  for 
peace.  It  was  in  the  nullification  troubles  of  1832-33 
that  he  became  the  ardent  champion  of  the  country's 
integrity  not  only  in  words,  but  in  acts.  In  his 
speeches  in  favor  of  the  tariff  compromise  he  had 
frequent  occasion  to  refer  to  his  views  upon  the  per 
petuity  of  the  Union.  He  affected  to  believe  that 
South  Carolina  never  would  have  carried  out  her 
threats,  that  she  would  have  backed  down.  But  he 
felt  the  danger  was  such  that  she  might  have  fought 
and  carried  away  other  States  with  her,  involving 
the  country  in  civil  war.  He  once  sard  : 

4 '  If  there  be  any  who  want  civil  wai.  who  want  to  see 
the  blood  of  any  portion  of  our  countrymen  spilt,  I  am  not  one 
of  them.  I  wish  to  see  war  of  no  kind  ;  but,  above  all,  I  do 
not  desire  to  see  civil  war.  When  war  begins,  whether  civil 
or  foreign,  no  human  sight  is  competent  to  for  see  when,  or 
how,  or  where  it  is  to  terminate.  But  when  a  civil  war  shall 
be  lighted  up  in  the  bosom  of  our  happy  land,  and  armies 
are  marching,  and  commanders  are  winning  their  victories, 
and  fleets  are  in  motion  on  our  coasts,  tell  me,  if  you  can, 
tell  me,  if  any  human  being  can  tell  its  duration.  God  alone 
knows  where  such  a  war  would  end." 

On  a  subsequent  occasion  he  said  : 

"The  difference  between  the  friends  and  foes  of  the  com 
promise  under  consideration  is,  that  they  would,  in  the  en 
forcing  act,  send  forth  alone  a  flaming  sword.  We  would 

358 


,  .__       ^.a.^       ...  »   .  -•- 

LETTER    WRITTEN    BY    HENRY    CLAY    TO    HIS    WIFE    ABOUT    A    YEAR    AND 

A    HALF    BEFORE    HIS    DEATH.         HE   WAS    THEN    NEARLY 

SEVENTY-FOUR    YEARS    OLD 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Clay,  Lexington,  Kentucky.     Photo 
graphed  especially  for  this  volume.) 


PRESERVER   OF   THE   UNION 

send  out  that  also,  but  along  with  it  the  olive  branch  as  a 
messenger  of  peace.  They  cry  out,  the  law,  the  law,  the 
law  !  Power,  power,  power  !  We,  too,  reverence  the  law, 
and  bow  to  the  supremacy  of  its  obligations  ;  but  we  are  in 
favor  of  the  law  executed  in  mildness,  and  of  power  tempered 
with  mercy.  They,  as  we  think,  would  hazard  a  civil  com 
motion,  beginning  in  South  Carolina,  and  extending,  God 
only  knows  where.  While  we  would  vindicate  the  federal 
government,  we  are  for  peace,  if  possible,  the  Union  and 
liberty.  We  want  no  war,  above  all,  no  civil  war,  no  family 
strife.  We  want  to  see  no  sacked  cities,  no  desolated  fields, 
no  smoking  ruins,  no  streams  of  American  blood  shed  by 
American  arms." 

But  Clay  could  do  no  more  than  postpone  these 
scenes  until  after  he  had  passed  from  the  theatre  of 
action,  and  it  cannot  be  said,  in  the  light  of  subse 
quent  events,  that  he  was  exaggerating  the  situation. 
Closing  this  speech  with  a  special  reference,  Clay 
^said  : 

"I  have  been  accused  of  ambition  in  presenting  this 
measure.  Ambition  !  Inordinate  ambition  !  If  I  had 
thought  of  myself  only,  I  should  have  never  brought  it  for 
ward.  I  know  well  the  perils  to  which  I  expose  myself  ;  the 
risk  of  alienating  grateful  and  valued  friends,  with  but  little 
prospect  of  making  new  ones.  If  any  new  ones  could  com 
pensate  for  the  loss  of  those  whom  we  have  long  tried  and 
loved  ;  and  the  honest  misconceptions  both  of  friends  and 
foes.  Ambition  !  If  I  had  listened  to  its  soft  and  seducing 
whispers  ;  if  I  had  yielded  myself  to  the  dictates  of  a  cold, 
calculating,  and  prudential  policy,  I  would  have  stood  still 
and  unmoved.  I  might  even  have  silently  gazed  upon  the 
raging  storm,  enjoyed  its  loudest  thunders,  and  left  those 
who  are  charged  with  the  care  of  the  vessel  of  State,  to  con 
duct  it  as  they  could.  I  have  been  heretofore  often  unjustly 
accused  of  ambition.  Low,  grovelling  souls,  who  are  utterly 
incapable  of  elevating  themselves  to  the  higher  and  nobler 
duties  of  pure  patriotism — beings  who,  forever  keeping  their 
own  selfish  aims  in  view,  decide  all  public  measures  by  their 
presumed  influence  or  their  aggrandisement — judge  me  by  the 
venal  rule  which  they  prescribe  to  themselves.  I  have 
given  to  the  winds  those  false  accusations,  as  I  consign  that 
which  now  impeaches  my  motives.  I  have  no  desire  of 

359 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

office,  not  even  the  highest.  The  most  exalted  is  but  a 
prison,  in  which  the  incarcerated  incumbent  daily  receives 
his  cold,  heartless  visitors,  marks  his  weary  hours,  and  is 
cut  off  from  the  practical  enjoyment  of  all  the  blessings  of 
genuine  freedom.  I  am  no  candidate  for  any  office  in  the 
gift  of  the  people  in  these  States,  united  or  separated.  I 
never  wish,  never  expect  to  be.  Pass  this  bill,  tranquillize 
the  country,  restore  confidence  and  affection  in  the  Union, 
and  I  am  willing  to  go  home  to  Ashland  and  renounce  public 
service  forever.  I  shall  there  find  in  its  groves,  under  its 
shades,  on  its  lawns,  amid  my  flocks  and  herds,  in  the 
bosom  of  my  family,  sincerity  and  truth,  attachment  and 
fidelity,  and  gratitude,  which  I  have  not  always  found  in  the 
walks  of  public  life.  Yes,  I  have  ambition  ;  but  it  is  the 
ambition  of  being  the  humble  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
Providence  to  reconcile  a  divided  people  ;  once  more  to  re 
vive  concord  and  harmony  in  a  distracted  land — the  pleasing 
ambition  of  contemplating  the  glorious  spectacle  of  a  free, 
united,  prosperous,  and  fraternal  people  !" 

Doubtless  Clay  meant  every  word  of  what  he 
said  notwithstanding  the  fact  he  was  afterwards  a 
candidate  for  the  Presidency  and  three  times  un 
successfully  for  the  nomination.  In  some  men  this 
conduct  would  seem  inconsistent — perhaps  dis 
creditable,  but  every  friend  and  every  enemy  of 
Clay  knew  that  he  meant  what  he  said  at  the  time 
he  said  it,  and  that  he  was  persuaded  from  his 
purposes  by  no  ignoble  impulses. 

In  succeeding  speeches  for  years  Clay  was  wont 
to  make  an  earnest  appeal  for  the  Union  and  to  ex 
plain  that  his  principal  measures  had  for  their  prime 
object  the  cementing  national  spirit.  There  were 
those  who  thought  he  dwelt  too  much  on  this  theme, 
but  if  so,  such  was  not  Clay's  intention.  In  1839 
in  the  Senate  he  made  his  notable  attack  upon  the 
abolitionists,  to  which  reference  has  already  been 
made.  In  the  course  of  this  attack  he  said  : 

"  Abolition  should  no  longer  be  regarded  as  an  imaginary 
danger.  The  abolitionists,  let  me  suppose,  succeed  in  their 

360 


PRESERVER   OF   THE   UNION 

present  aim  of  uniting  the  inhabitants  of  the  free  States,  as 
one  man,  against  the  inhabitants  of  the  slave  States.  Union 
on  the  one  side  will  beget  union  on  the  other.  And  this 
process  of  reciprocal  consolidation  will  be  attended  with  all 
the  violent  prejudices,  and  bitter  passions,  and  implacable 
animosities,  which  ever  degraded  or  deformed  human  nature. 
A  virtual  dissolution  of  the  Union  will  have  taken  place  while 
the  forms  of  its  existence  remain.  The  most  valuable  ele 
ment  of  union,  mutual  kindness,  the  feelings  of  sympathy, 
the  fraternal  bonds,  which  now  happily  unite  us  will  be  ex 
tinguished  forever.  One  section  will  stand  in  menacing  and 
hostile  array  against  the  other.  The  collision  of  opinion  will 
be  quickly  followed  by  the  clash  of  arms. ' ' 

Referring  to  slavery  he  denounced  it  as  an  evil, 
but  had  no  remedy  to  offer.  Touching  upon  the 
question  of  freeing  the  slaves,  he  said  : 

"Their  liberty,  if  it  were  possible,  could  only  be  estab 
lished  by  violating  the  incontestable  powers  of  the  States,  and 
subverting  the  Union.  And  beneath  the  ruins  of  the  Union 
would  be  buried,  sooner  or  later,  the  liberty  of  both  races." 

In  his  whole  career  Clay  admitted  but  one  justifi 
cation  for  secession,  and  that  "the  impossible  case," 
as  he  called  it,  in  which  Congress  should  undertake 
to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  ex 
isted.  This  sentiment  he  uttered  to  the  Legislature 
of  Kentucky  just  before  his  death. 

During  the  discussion  of  the  compromises  of  1850 
Clay  was  disturbed  by  constant  references  to  the 
rights  of  the  South,  Southern  "  allegiance,"  and  par 
ticularly  by  the  fact  that  the  Nashville  Convention 
was  meditating  treason  and  only  adjourned  because 
the  compromises  seemed  to  make  rash  action  at  the 
time  imprudent.  On  one  occasion,  in  a  storm  of 
passion,  he  voiced  a  sentiment  which  has  long  been 
engraven  on  the  hearts  of  American  patriots  : 

' '  Sir,  I  have  heard  something  said  on  this  and  a  former 
occasion  about  allegiance  to  the  South.  I  know  no  South,  no 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

North,  no  East,  no  West  to  which  I  owe  any  allegiance.  I 
owe  allegiance  to  two  sovereignties,  and  only  two  :  one  is  the 
sovereignty  of  this  Union,  and  the  other  is  the  sovereignty 
of  the  State  of  Kentucky.  My  allegiance  is  to  this  Union 
and  to  my  State  ;  but  if  gentlemen  suppose  they  can  exact 
from  me  an  acknowledgment  of  allegiance  to  any  ideal  or 
future  contemplated  confederacy  of  the  South,  I  here  declare 
I  owe  no  allegiance  to  it ;  nor  will  I,  for  one,  come  under 
such  allegiance  if  I  can  avoid  it.  I  know  what  my  duties 
are,  and  gentlemen  may  cease  to  remind  me  that  I  am  from 
a  slave- holding  State.  ...  If  Kentucky  to-morrow  unfurls 
the  banner  of  resistance  unjustly,  I  never  will  fight  under 
that  banner.  I  owe  a  paramount  allegiance  to  the  whole 
Union,  a  subordinate  one  to  my  own  State.  When  my  State 
is  right,  when  it  has  a  cause  for  resistance,  when  tyranny  and 
wrong  and  oppression  insufferable  arise,  I  will  then  share  her 
fortunes  ;  but  if  she  summons  me  to  the  battle-field  or  to 
support  her  in  any  cause  which  is  unjust  against  the  Union, 
never,  never  will  I  engage  with  her  in  such  a  cause.  .  .  . 
There  are  as  brave,  as  dauntless,  as  gallant  men  and  as  de 
voted  patriots,  in  my  opinion,  in  every  other  State  in  the 
Union  as  are  to  be  found  in  South  Carolina  herself;  and  if  in 
any  unjust  cause  South  Carolina  or  any  other  State  should 
hoist  the  flag  of  disunion  and  rebellion,  thousands,  tens  of 
thousands  of  Kentuckians  would  flock  to  the  standard  of 
their  country  to  dissipate  and  repress  their  rebellion.  These 
are  my  sentiments — make  the  most  of  them." 

And  a  few  days  later,  after  the  first  defeat  of  the 
compromises,  he  spoke  thus  : 

"The  honorable  Senator  speaks  of  Virginia  being  my 
country.  This  Union  is  my  country  ;  the  thirty  States  are 
my  country  ;  Kentucky  is  my  country,  and  Virginia  no  more 
than  any  other  of  the  States  of  this  Union.  She  has  created 
on  my  part  obligations  and  feelings  and  duties  towards  her 
in  my  private  character  which  nothing  upon  earth  would  in 
duce  me  to  forfeit  or  violate.  But  even  if  it  were  my  own 
State — if  my  own  State,  lawlessly,  contrary  to  her  duty, 
should  raise  the  standard  of  disunion  against  the  residue,  I 
would  go  against  her.  I  would  go  against  Kentucky  herself, 
in  that  case,  much  as  I  love  her." 

These  were  strong  words,  brave  words  and  true. 
They  made  a  sensation  at  the  time.  They  stiffened 

362 


PRESERVER   OF   THE   UNION 

some  men  in  the  South  who  were  wavering  on  the 
brink  of  disunion,  and  they  stimulated  men  in  the 
North.  In  Kentucky  the  effect  was  electrical.  It 
was  largely  the  memoiy  of  Clay  and  his  teachings 
which  kept  Kentucky  from  running  into  the  arms 
of  the  Confederacy  at  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  the  entrance  of  Kentucky 
into  the  Confederacy  at  that  time  would  have  been 
fatal  to  the  Union,  but  if  she  had  done  so  certainly 
the  struggle  would  have  been  much  longer,  if  not 
disastrous  to  the  Union.  If  ever  the  voice  of  man 
saved  his  country  it  was  that  of  Clay.  Nor  were 
his  views  personal  to  himself.  Much  excitement 
was  aroused  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Rhett,  of  Charles 
ton,  South  Carolina,  had,  on  his  return  from  the 
Nashville  Convention,  seemed  to  urge  secession. 
Clay  in  the  Senate  commented  harshly  on  the  sub 
ject.  A  friend  in  defence  of  Rhett  declared  he  was  a 
good  man,  and  his  remarks  had  been  misquoted. 
This  did  not  daunt  Clay  at  all,  who  took  occasion 
to  say  : 

"If  he  pronounced  the  sentiment  attributed  to  him,  of 
raising  the  standard  of  disunion  and  of  resistance  to  the 
common  government,  whatever  he  has  been,  if  he  follows 
up  that  declaration  by  corresponding  overt  acts,  he  will  be  a 
traitor,  and  I  hope  he  will  meet  the  fate  of  a  traitor." 

There  was  no  mistaking  such  language.  It  was 
unequivocal  and  profoundly  impressed  some  of  those 
in  the  Senate.  The  galleries  broke  into  applause. 
Clay  returned  to  the  attack  : 

• '  I  have  said  that  I  want  to  know  whether  we  are  bound 
together  by  a  rope  of  sand  or  an  effective,  capable  govern 
ment,  competent  to  enforce  the  powers  therein  vested  by 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  ?  And  what  is  the  doc 
trine  of  Nullification  set  up  again,  revived,  resuscitated, 
neither  enlarged  nor  improved  nor  extended  in  this  new  edi 
tion  of  it  ?  That  when  a  single  State  shall  undertake  to  say 

363 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

that  a  law  passed  by  the  twenty-nine  others  is  unconstitu 
tional  and  void,  she  may  raise  the  standard  of  resistance  and 
defy  the  twenty-nine.  Sir,  I  denied  the  doctrine  twenty  years 
ago.  I  deny  it  now.  I  will  die  denying  it.  There  is  no 
such  principle.  If  a  State  chooses  to  assume  the  attitude  of 
defiance  to  the  sovereign  authority,  and  set  up  a  separate 
nation  against  the  nation  of  twenty-nine  States,  it  takes  the 
consequences  upon  itself,  and  the  question  is  reduced  to  this  : 
shall  the  twenty-nine  yield  to  one,  or  the  one  yield  to  the 
twenty-nine  ?  Call  it  by  what  mystic  name  you  please, — a 
State,  a  corporation,  a  sovereignty, — whatever  force  of  a 
State  is  put  in  array  against  the  authority  of  the  Union,  it 
must  submit  to  the  consequences  of  revolt,  as  every  other 
community  must  submit  when  a  revolt  is  made. 

"Gentlemen  lay  to  their  souls  the  flattering  unction  that 
the  army  is  composed  of  officers  from  Virginia,  South  Caro 
lina,  and  other  Southern  States,  and  the  army  will  not  draw 
their  swords.  What,  sir,  the  army  of  the  United  States 
under  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  United  States, — under  the 
command  of  the  gallant  officer  recently  making  the  conquest 
of  Mexico, — not  to  do  their  duty?  Gentlemen  will  find 
themselves  utterly  mistaken  if  such  a  state  of  things  arises. ' ' 

After  listening  with  impatience  to  the  threats  of 
disunion  he  declared  :  "  I  am  for  trying  the  strength 
of  this  government." 

Clay  would  not  admit  that  there  was  cause  for 
disunion,  even  after  the  compromises  were  passed 
and  it  seemed  that  they  were  not  to  be  cheerfully 
obeyed  by  either  side.  He  manifested  the  same 
reluctance  to  admit  a  justification  when  it  was 
charged  that  the  laws  were  being  violated  by  both 
sides,  particularly  when  the  North  resisted  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  law  not  only  by  mob  spirit  but  by  the 
passage  of  "personal  liberty  laws."  Asked  when 
he  would  consent  to  disunion,  he  said,  in  an  address 
on  the  subject  before  the  Legislature  of  Kentucky  : 

"Never,  for  no  possible  contingency  can  I  perceive  which 
would  make  disunion  desirable.  I*  will  yield,  if  Congress 
ever  usurps  the  power  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States  where 
it  exists  ;  but  I  am  sure  it  will  never  do  so." 

364 


l.ETTER    OK    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    To    JOHN    M.    CLAY,   SON    OF    HENRY    CLAY 
DEALING    WITH    THE    GREAT    COMMONER'S    VIEWS    ON    THE    UNION 

(Original  in  possession  of  Mrs.  John  M.  Clay,  Lexington,  Kentucky.     Photographed 
especially  for  this  volume.) 


PRESERVER   OF   THE   UNION 

Clay's  own  family  was  divided  when  the  struggle 
came.  The  father  was  spared  the  sorrow  of  seeing 
child  and  grandchildren  fighting  for  disunion.  Of 
Clay's  surviving  family  at  the  time  of  the  war,  his 
widow  remained  loyal  and  sent  encouraging  mes 
sages  to  Lincoln.  Of  the  sons,  James  went  with 
the  Confederacy  and  died  in  exile  ;  John  and 
Thomas  were  loyal.  John,  who  was  living  on  the 
old  Ashland  estate,  sent  to  Lincoln  a  snuff-box  that 
had  been  presented  to  his  father,  with  a  friendly 
greeting  from  Mrs.  Clay  and  himself.  To  this  Lincoln 
replied  in  the  following  letter  : 

EXECUTIVE   MANSION, 

WASHINGTON,  August  9,  1862. 

MR.  JOHN  M.  CLAY, 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — The  snuff-box  you  sent,  with  the  accompanying 
note,  was  received  yesterday. 

Thanks  for  this  memento  of  your  great  and  patriotic  father.  Thanks 
also  for  the  assurance  that,  in  these  days  of  dereliction,  you  remain  true 
to  his  principles.  In  the  concurrent  sentiment  of  your  venerable  mother, 
so  long  the  partner  of  his  bosom  and  his  honors,  and  lingering  now, 
where  he  was,  but  for  the  call  to  rejoin  him  where  he  zV,  I  recognize 
his  voice,  speaking  as  it  ever  spoke,  for  the  Union,  the  Constitution, 
and  the  freedom  of  mankind. 

Your  Obt.  Servt., 

A.  LINCOLN. 

This  letter,  characteristic  as  a  literary  composition 
and  full  of  sentiment,  compares  favorably  with  any 
thing  Lincoln  ever  wrote.  Lincoln  was  Clay's 
greatest  pupil  and  disciple,  and  frequently  acknowl 
edged  his  obligations  to  the  teachings  of  the  Ash 
land  statesman. 

Of  Clay's  grandchildren,  some  fought  for  the 
Union  and  some  for  the  Confederacy.  A  number 
died  on  the  field  or  in  hospital.  In  one  family 
brother  fought  against  brother — a  condition  by  no 
means  uncommon  in  the  State — and  both  perished. 


365 


XXVI 

LAST    DAYS    AND    DEATH 

CLAY  found  that  the  air  of  Newport  agreed  witfi 
him,  and  he  afterwards  regretted  that  he  had  cut 
short  his  stay  there  in  the  summer  of  1850.  He 
was  gone  only  three  weeks.  Returning  to  the  Sen 
ate  he  remained  in  his  seat  until  the  end  of  Septem 
ber,  when,  upon  adjournment,  he  went  to  Ashland. 
Here  he  was  welcomed  by  his  wife,  who  hoped  that 
he  would  retire  from  public  life  now  that  his  task 
had  been  accomplished.  But  Clay,  knowing  his 
work  was  not  done,  returned  to  the  Senate  in  De 
cember,  though  greatly  disturbed  by  his  cough. 
Little  was  accomplished  at  this  session  except  the 
defeat  of  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill  in  which  he  was 
greatly  interested,  and  on  which  he  made  the  last 
remarks  of  any  importance  in  his  public  career. 
There  was  a  brief  extra-session  of  the  Senate  after 
adjournment,  and  Clay  refused  to  accept  that  con 
structive  mileage  which  has  been  for  so  many  years  a 
source  of  contention. 

Clay  was  now  very  feeble,  and  his  physician 
having  recommended  sea  air,  he  determined  to 
return  home  by  way  of  Cuba  and  New  Orleans.  In 
a  letter  to  his  wife  he  says  he  has  taken  this  decision 
with  great  reluctance,  as  he  is  anxious  to  be  with 
her,  but  the  state  of  his  health  and  the  bad  condition 
of  the  roads  made  an  overland  journey  dangerous. 
There  was  then  no  railroad  across  the  Alleghanies, 
and  he  would  have  been  greatly  harassed  in  a  trip 
over  the  Cumberland  Road,  which  had  been  his 
pride,  and  which  he  had  seen  destroyed  by  the  vetoes 

366 


LAST   DAYS   AND   DEATH 

of  the  Virginia  statesmen.  The  trip  took  a  month, 
and  he  was"  considerably  benefited,  and  he  after- 
Awards  regretted  that  he  did  not  stay  longer  in  Cuba. 
In  New  Orleans  he  met  his  son-in-law  and  grand 
children.  He  had  visited  New  Orleans  at  length 
during  his  retirement  from  the  Senate,  and  found 
many  friends  there,  but  he  was  pursuing  a  phantom 
when  he  sought  health. 

Although  his  physician  assured  him  that  his  lungs 
were  as  yet  unaffected,  the  cough  increased,  and  it 
was  apparent  to  most  people  that  he  was  gradually 
sinking.  AgainsUall  remonstrances  he  set  out  for 
Washington  in  the  fall  of  1851,  alone,  and  was  so 
exhausted  when  he  arrived  that  he  was  able  only 
once  to  enter  the  Senate  chamber,  where  he  made 
a- few  unimportant  remarks  and  left  it  forever.  Most 
of  the  winter  he  spent  inliis  room,  much  of  the  time 
in  bed.  Here,  on  February  9,  1852,  was  presented 
to  him  the  gold  medal  which  admiring  friends  had 
secured  for  him,  and  for  which  he  had  furnished 
the  inscription  on  the  reverse  side.  It  is  interesting 
to  note  the  acts  by  which  Clay  desired  to  be  re 
membered.  They  were  as  follows  :  Senate,  1 806  } 
Speaker,  18.1 1  ;  war  of  1 8 1 2  with  Great  Britain  ; 
Ghent,  1814;  Missouri  Compromise,  iB2i  ;  Spanish 
America,  L&22  ;  American  system,  1.824  J  Greece, 
1824;  Secretary  of  State,  i.&2_§  ;  Panama  instruc 
tions,  1826;  Tariff  comjfrbmise,  1833  ;  Public  Do 
main,  1833-41  ;  peace  with  France  preserved,  1835  ; 
Compromise,  1850.*** 

This  list  is  remarkable  not  only  for  what  it  con 
tains  but  for  what  is  omitted  from  it  The  national 
bank  is  not  mentioned,  neither  is  one  of  his  cam 
paigns  for  the  Presidency.  But  it  is  a  noble  record, 
one  which  cannot  be  matched  by  any  other  American 
and  it  is  interesting  as  being  that  which  Clay  wrote 
himself.  This  was  near  the  close  of  his  life,  and  it 

367 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

was  painfully  apparent  that  his  days  would  be  few, 
though  they  were  prolonged  beyond  the  hopes  of 
the  most  sanguine. 

"That  constitution,"  said  one  of  his  physicians, 
"was  made  for  ninety  years  ;  but  it  has  been  over 
tasked.  It  can  never  be  braced  up  again  but  must 
fail." 

This  was  all  too  true.  Clay  continued  to  write 
his  family  in  cheerful  vein  and  insisted  that  none  of 
them  should  come  to  him,  though  many  insisted  on 
doing  so.  Although  there  has  been  some  criticism 
on  the  fact  that  some  members  did  not  come  in  spite 
of  this  prohibition,  it  must  be  remembered  that  even 
in  his  dying  days  Clay  was  imperious,  and  though  the 
most  loving  of  fathers  there  was  no  child  who  dared 
disobey  him. 

As  the  old  man  lay  dying  in  his  chamber  Kossuth 
reached  Washington  on  that  spectacular  tour  which 
nearly  carried  the  American  people  off  their  feet, 
and  made  them  lose  their  senses.  Kossuth  had 
many  claims  on  the  sympathies  of  this  country,  but 
none  on  the  direct  aid  in  behalf  of  Hungary  which 
he  sought,  though  few  were  willing  to  tell  him  so. 
It  was  reserved  to  the  Dying  Oak  to  tell  him  plainly 
that  the  aid  he  sought  was  impossible,  that  we  could 
not  embroil  ourselves  in  European  quarrels.  This 
was  said  in  a  dignified  manner  and,  greatly  affected 
Kossuth,  though  it  was  an  extinguisher  upon  all  his 
hopes.  Clay  was  aware  that  his  own  career  was 
ended,  but  he  did  not  hesitate  when  the  country 
was  becoming  intoxicated  to  draw  it  back  to  sober 
thought  by  the  statement  of  a  few  truths  which  were 
effective. 

Clay's  last  political  act  was  to  write  a  letter  pre 
ferring  Fillmore  for  the  Presidency  at  a  time  when 
Webster  and  Scott  were  candidates.  The  latter  was 
nominated  and  defeated  overwhelmingly,  and  the 

368 


LAST   DAYS   AND   DEATH 

Whig  party  was  greatly  weakened.  Clay  preferred 
Fillmore  because  he  adhered  to  the  compromises 
and  Webster  felt  aggrieved. 

Clay's  end  was  at  hand.  Thomas,  a  son,  came 
from  Lexington  to  nurse  his  father,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  he  sent  for  his  brother  James,  who 
arrived  some  days  before  his  father's  death. 

Clay  was  serene  although  conscious  of  the  ap 
proach  of  death.  He  had  made  his  peace  with  his. 
God,  had  done  his  best  for  his  country,  and  had  no 
desire  to  prolong  the  agony  of  existence,  though  he 
never  once  murmured.  The  reports  made  by 
Thomas  to  his  family  at  Ashland  show  that  the  con 
dition  of  the  patient  was  hopeless  from  the  start,  and 
the  grip  on  life  was  maintained  longer  than  could 
reasonably  have  been  expected.  Mrs.  Clay  was  too 
feeble  to  come  to  Washington,  though  she  survived 
her  husband  nearly  a  dozen  years.  Two  sons  were 
at  his  bedside,  one  was  in  the  insane  asylum,  and  the 
other  was  perforce  compelled  to  remain  and  look 
after  Ashland,  though  he  wished  to  be  with  his 
father.  All  during  May  and  June  the  cough  grew 
worse.  Clay  slept  only  under  the  influence  of  opiates 
and  then  poorly.  For  the  last  ten  days  he  was  so 
weak  that  he  gave  few  signs  of  life,  and  dissolution 
was  expected  at  any  moment.  The  last  night  of  his 
life  he  was  heard  to  murmur  the  childish  prayer, 
"Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep,"  and  it  is  said  that 
he  had  repeated  it  every  night  since  he  learned  to 
lisp  it  from  his  mother's  lips.  He  passed  away  at 
seventeen  minutes  past  eleven,  June  29,  1852. 

The  announcement  of  his  death  was  made  in  each 
House  of  Congress,  which  immediately  adjourned 
out  of  respect  for  his  memory,  and  the  next  day  ar 
rangements  were  made  for  the  public  funeral  and 
that  long  journey  to  Lexington  which  was  the  most 
extraordinary  in  our  history  up  to  that  time,  and 
24  369 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

since  repeated  in  full  measure  only  in  the  case  ot 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

On  that  day,  June  30,  the  members  of  both 
Houses  indulged  in  an  outburst  of  eulogy.  Senator 
Underwood  announced  the  death  of  his  colleague  in 
a  speech  in  which  there  was  too  much  emotion  to 
make  it  possible  that  it  should  be  a  proper  estimate 
of  the  man.  One  after  another,  Senators  and  Rep 
resentatives  arose  to  speak  of  one  who  had  been  in 
all  respects  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  both 
bodies,  and  who  had  served  over  a  longer  period  than 
any  other  member. 

The  finest  tribute  came  from  the  youthful  John 
C.  Breckinridge,  a  member  of  the  House,  soon  to 
become  Vice-President  and  then  to  go  over  to 
secession.  He  said  : 

"  As  a  leader  in  a  deliberative  body  Mr.  Clay  had  no  equal 
in  America.  In  him,  intellect,  person,  eloquence  and  cour 
age,  united  to  form  a  character  fit  to  command.  He  fired 
with  his  own  enthusiasm,  and  controlled  by  his  amazing 
will,  individuals  and  masses.  No  reverse  could  crush  his 
spirit,  no  defeat  reduce  him  to  despair.  Equally  erect  and 
dauntless  in  prosperity  and  adversity,  when  successful  he 
moved  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  purposes  with  severe 
resolution ;  when  defeated  he  rallied  his  broken  bands 
around  him,  and  from  his  eagle  eye  shot  along  their  ranks 
the  contagion  of  his  own  courage.  Destined  for  a  leader,  he 
everywhere  asserted  his  destiny.  In  his  long  and  eventful 
life,  he  came  in  contact  with  men  of  all  ranks  and  professions, 
but  he  never  felt  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  man  supe 
rior  to  himself.  In  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  at  the  bar, 
in  the  Senate,  everywhere  within  the  circle  of  his  personal 
presence,  he  assumed  and  maintained  a  position  of  pre 
eminence." 

Many  others  joined  in  eulogizing  the  departed 
statesman,  and  none  spoke  without  feelings  of  deep 
est  sorrow.  There  were  among  them  those  who 
had  fought  Clay  in  the  forum  and  on  the  stump, 

37o 


LAST   DAYS   AND   DEATH 

but  none  in  the  hour  of  death  could  feel  resent 
ment 

The  funeral  procession  was  the  longest  in  the 
history  of  the  country.  The  cortege  moved  from 
Washington  via  Baltimore,  Wilmington,  Philadelphia, 
New  York,  Albany,  Buffalo,  Cleveland  and  Cincin 
nati  to  Lexington,  where  the  body  arrived  July  9. 

The  cortege  arrived  in  Lexington  at  night,  and 
was  escorted  by  crowds  of  people  who  followed 
the  official  delegations  from  Lexington  and  those 
from  other  cities.  Lighted  by  torches  the  catafalque 
proceeded  to  Ashland,  where  for  one  night  the 
body  of  Clay  remained  in  state.  In  the  night 
hours  Mrs.  Clay  alone  was  admitted  to  the  chamber 
in  his  beloved  home.  There  in  prayer  and  tears 
she  remained  with  the  one  she  had  loved.  For 
fifty-three  years  she  had  lived  in  harmony  and  peace 
with  him.  Six  daughters  had  been  born  to  them, 
and  all  had  passed  away.  Of  five  sons,  one  was  in 
sane  from  youth,  and  one  was  killed  at  Buena  Vista. 

The  funeral  services  over  Mr.  Clay  were  the  most 
impressive  that  had  ever  been  held  in  this  country. 
The  whole  of  Kentucky  had  turned  out  to  honor  its 
greatest  son.  It  seemed  for  the  time  as  if  the  State 
had  no  hope  in  the  future  now  that  the  Great  Com 
moner  was  gone. 

Above  his  grave  the  State  reared  a  monument. 
It  consists  of  a  crypt  in  which  lie  the  remains  of 
Clay  and  his  wife,  a  Corinthian  shaft  surmounted  on 
which  was  a  colossal  statue  of  the  Great  Pacificator. 
For  fifty  years  that  statue  was  seen  for  many  miles 
surrounding  the  cemetery.  Every  traveller  on  the 
trains  entering  Lexington  had  looked  out  eagerly  to 
see  the  majestic  form  of  the  great  statesman  as  he 
stood  in  the  attitude  of  making  a  speech  in  the 
Senate.  In  the  summer  of  1902  a  bolt  of  light 
ning  knocked  off  the  head  of  the  statue  and  hurled 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

it  to  the  ground.  As  Kentucky  was  then  engaged 
in  the  throes  of  political  strife  in  which  there  were 
many  things  said  and  done  which  were  hardly  in 
accordance  with  the  views  of  Henry  Clay,  there 
were  superstitious  persons  who  looked  upon  the  de- 
molishment  of  the  statue  as  an  act  of  Providence. 
Colonel  William  C.  P.  Breckinridge,  who  married  one 
of  Clay's  descendants,  remarked,  "  Nothing  but  a 
stroke  of  lightning  could  make  Clay  lose  his  head." 
The  Legislature  was  asked  to  appropriate  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  to  repair  the  statue,  but  refused  even 
to  report  the  bill  out  of  committee,  and  at  this 
writing  the  headless  statue  of  Clay  surmounts  the 
monument 

Around  this  monument  are  buried  many  members 
of  the  family  and  the  place  has  become  a  Mecca  for 
travellers  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  There  re 
poses  Clay,  in  the  soil  of  his  beloved  Kentucky,  as 
he  had  so  often  desired. 

The  following  words  are  engraven  on  Clay's  sar 
cophagus.  They  are  his  own: 

"I  can  with  unshaken  confidence  appeal  to  the  Divine 
Arbiter  for  the  truth  of  the  declaration  that  I  have  been  in 
fluenced  by  no  impure  purpose,  no  personal  motive  ;  have 
sought  no  personal  aggrandizement ;  but  that  in  all  my  pub 
lic  acts  I  have  had  a  sole  and  single  eye,  and  a  warm,  de 
voted  heart,  directed  and  dedicated  to  what  in  my  best  judg 
ment  I  believe  to  be  the  true  interests  of  my  country. ' ' 

And  on  a  tablet  in  the  crypt  is  written  : 
I  KNOW  NO  SOUTH,  NO  NORTH,  NO  EAST,  NO  WEST. 

American  flags  are  to  be  found  draping  the  tomb, 
with  the  inscription  "These  are  our  credentials," 
and  there  fresh  flowers  are  laid  as  tributes  from 

372 


LAST   DAYS   AND   DEATH 

those  who  remember  and  loved  him  and  who  find  in 
this  tribute  the  best  expression  of  that  sentiment 
which  was  so  strongly  developed  in  one  who  loved 
Nature  and  was  never  so  happy  as  when  surrounded 
by  her  most  visible  forms.  He  sleeps  in  peace,  but 
he  still  lives  in  the  affections  of  the  nation  he  loved 
so  well,  and  in  the  minds  of  millions  who  have  been 
born  since  he  died  and  who  recognize  that  his  many 
efforts  in  behalf  of  our  common  country  form  one 
of  the  richest  heritages  that  any  American  has  left 
to  his  people. 


373 


XXVII 

HENRY    CLAY    THE    MAN 

IN  any  attempt  to  narrate  the  life  of  summarize 
the  character  of  so  extraordinary  a  personality  as 
Henry  Clay,  it  must  ever  appear  that  his  deficiencies 
and  shortcomings  are  emphasized.  The  virtues  of 
private  and  the  victories  of  public  life  in  civil  affairs 
are  not  so  conspicuous  as  the  weaknesses  and  fail 
ures.  The  good  is  more  important,  but  never  so 
easily  described  nor  so  notably  impressed  upon  the 
mind.  If  any  reader  of  this  volume  has  felt  there 
has  been  an  effort  to  minimize  the  virtues  of  Clay 
or  to  exaggerate  his  failings,  I  have  been  writing  to 
little  purpose.  Clay's  position  in  history  is  assured. 
No  writer  can  minimize  it  and  it  may  be  vain  to 
expect  that  it  has  been  accentuated.  The  effort  of 
these  pages  has  been  to  draw  a  portrait  of  one  of 
the  greatest  of  American  citizens,  to  explain  exactly 
how,  when,  and  where  he  achieved  for  his  country  ; 
to  make  prominent  the  man  rather  than  the  states 
man. 

Henry  Clay  from  youth  was  of  marked  ability. 
He  was  original,  ebullient,  sanguine,  imaginative, 
and  forceful.  He  drew  men  to  him,  less  by  his  rare 
intellectual  powers  than  by  a  personality  which  was 
well-nigh  irresistible.  He  loved  his  fellow  man,  he 
loved  his  State,  he  loved  all  States,  and  he  loved  his 
country.  If  it  seem  to  any  that  his  life  was  a  fail 
ure  because  he  lost  the  Presidency  so  ardently  de 
sired,  or  because  he  failed  in  so  many  of  the  measures 

374 


HENRY   CLAY   THE   MAN 

which  were  so  dear  to  him,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  affirmatively  he  accomplished  much.  He  was  in 
the  last  analysis  one  of  the  most  successful  of  Ameri 
can  statesmen. 

We  owe  to  him  whatever  benefits  arise  from  the 
protective  system,  which  has  been  established  so  that 
for  more  than  forty  years  it  has  received  no  sub 
stantial  set-back  and  has  been  constantly  advanced  by 
his  disciples.  We  owe  to  him,  perhaps  more  than 
to  Webster,  that  love  of  country  which  is  now  so 
universal,  but  which  in  his  day  was  a  divided  senti 
ment.  We  owe  to  him  much  that  enters  into  the 
daily  life  of  every  American  citizen  and  we  are  not 
likely  in  any  event  to  appreciate  it  to  full  measure. 

We  have  had  but  one  statesman  since  Clay's  time 
in  any  way  comparable  to  him,  and  that  was  Elaine, 
who  seemed,  in  a  smaller  way,  to  have  had  a  career 
somewhat  parallel.  But  it  is  not  the  statesman, 
but  the  genial,  whole-souled,  imperious,  lovable 
Clay  that  we  think  upon  and  lament  Nature 
seemed  in  him  to  have  concentrated  her  richest  gifts 
and  when  he  fell  there  was  none  to  take  his  place. 
There  are  still  living  those  who  in  youth  knew  Clay 
in  his  old  age  and  they  bear  unanimous  testimony  to 
the  wonderful  soul  of  the  man.  It  need  not  be 
regretted  that,  after  all,  he  failed  of  the  Presidency. 
That  office  would  have  brought  him  no  additional 
honors  for  posterity  to  admire  and  might  have  cost 
him  much.  He,  in  his  calmer  hours,  looked  on  the 
Presidential  office  as  a  prison-house  and  never  la 
mented  his  failures  to  secure  it. 

It  is  difficult  for  the  ordinary  man  in  these  days 
to  account  for  the  failure  of  Clay's  chief  ambition. 
It  seems  opposed  to  the  natural  order  of  things  and 
almost  against  experience.  If  Clay  was  really  the 
popular  man  as  represented,  why  did  he  fail  to  re- 

375 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

ceive  the  approbation  of  the  public?  No  expert 
sociologist  has  any  trouble  over  this  problem.  In 
recent  years  the  psychology  of  great  masses  of 
people  has  been  more  closely  studied,  and  it  is 
known  that  what  is  sometimes  called  the  "mob 
spirit"  is  much  opposed  to  calm  reasoning.  There 
are  many  problems  in  human  history  that  are  in 
explicable  to  the  ordinary  person.  We  can  only 
admit  that  they  exist  and  reasonably  account  for 
them.  That  the  American  people  should  have  pre 
ferred  Jackson  to  Clay  is  to  many  extraordinary. 
It  is  no  more  reasonable  to  worry  over  this  problem 
than  many  others.  Daniel  Webster  was  intellectu 
ally  one  of  the  most  richly  endowed  men  in  the 
country,  yet  he  never  came  within  measurable  dis 
tance  of  a  nomination  at  a  national  convention. 
East  of  the  Alleghanies  in  1860  the  nomination  of 
Seward  by  the  Republican  party  seemed  assured, 
and  great  was  the  chagrin  when  Lincoln  was  pre 
ferred  before  him.  Such  examples  might  be  multi 
plied. 

Henry  Clay  lacked  one  essential  of  political  leader 
ship, — fixity  of  mind.  This  is  no  railing  accusation 
against  him  :  it  may  have  been  one  of  his  greatest 
virtues.  The  fact  remains  that  in  politics  as  in  war, 
continuity  of  purpose,  and  absolute  inflexibility  of 
will,  are  more  apt  to  win  than  changes  of  front  to 
meet  shifting  conditions.  It  does  not  do  to  try  to 
qualify  former  positions.  Clay  never  in  his  heart 
believed  that  he  was  "trimming"  on  any  subject. 
There  was  in  him  simply  an  inherent  defect  that  led 
to  misapprehensions  in  others.  It  has  been  charged 
that  he  was  more  anxious  to  succeed  than  be  right, 
that  he  loved  the  praise  of  men  more  than  that  of  his 
own  conscience.  His  whole  career,  rightly  under 
stood,  negatives  any  such  assumption,  no  matter 

376 


HENRY   CLAY   THE   MAN 

how  tar  a  few  incidents  may  seem  to  confirm  it.  As 
a  youth  he  braved  public  opinion,  and  he  continued 
to  do  so  all  his  life.  Indeed,  he  did  so  when  there 
seemed  no  occasion  to  do  it  He  was  so  imperious 
that  at  times  he  took  positions  which  grieved  his 
friends,  and  in  no  wise  appeased  his  enemies. 

Clay  was  not  really  intended  to  be  the  leader  of  a 
congeries  of  republics  such  as  composes  our  nation. 
If  this  had  been  a  single  democracy,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  he  could  easily  have  become  its  head, 
almost  its  dictator.  Leadership  in  our  nation  is 
different  from  that  in  any  other  that  ever  existed. 
It  has  been  said  that  this  nation  is  an  experiment. 
It  is  more  than  that ;  it  is  an  original  creation.  From 
the  Achaean  League  to  the  present  there  have  been 
many  forms  of  government,  but  never  one  exactly 
like  that  of  the  United  States.  It  has  in  some  re 
spects  the  rigidity  of  an  empire,  and  in  others  all  the 
flexibility  of  the  loose  federation  of  Greek  states. 
Its  strength  has  often  been  its  weakness  ;  its  defects 
have  often  been  its  salvation.  It  is  a  complicated 
arrangement,  though  simple  in  its  outline. 

Under  such  circumstances  successful  leadership 
has  come  often  to  those  who  have  been  mere  instru 
mentalities  in  the  hands  of  others  ;  occasionally  to 
men  of  rugged  force  who  have  captured  the  multi 
tude.  The  Presidency  of  the  nation  is  a  goal  worth 
the  ambition  of  any  man,  but  it  would  be  wrong  to 
say  that  it  is  the  test  of  the  highest  greatness.  There 
have  been  men  of  relatively  small  caliber  chosen  to 
the  chief  magistracy,  while  many  who  have  been 
most  worthy  of  its  honors  have  failed  to  gain  them. 
Men  like  Clay  and  Elaine  and  Tilden  have  come 
close  to  victory,  no  more  ;  others,  like  Polk  and 
Pierce,  have  won  the  honor,  but  their  elevation  has 
been  truly  surprising. 

377 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

If  Clay  had  not  been  an  extraordinary  man,  some 
of  his  lapses  from  the  modern  standard  would  have 
a  tendency  to  lower  him  in  popular  esteem.  In 
fact  he  was  a  man  of  his  times,  great  in  ambition, 
great  in  mind,  great  in  soul,  great  in  his  errors.  That 
he  was  human  in  his  failings  is  not  denied,  but  his 
environment,  the  standards  of  his  age,  must  not  be 
forgotten  in  gauging  these.  That  he  was  at  times 
indulgent  to  himself  cannot  be  denied,  but  that,  at 
far  past  seventy,  he  was  the  leader  of  the  greatest 
deliberative  assembly  that  ever  sat  in  America  ought 
to  be  a  sufficient  answer  to  those  who  assert  that  he 
was  grossly  dissipated. 

The  crowning  test  of  character  is  the  attitude  of 
a  man  towards  his  fellow  men.  Clay  was  an  ardent 
student  of  the  Scriptures  all  his  life,  and  the  para 
ble  of  the  sheep  and  the  goats  made  a  great  im 
pression  upon  him.  In  that  assumed  narrative  of 
the  Judgment  Day  the  view  taken  of  human  con 
duct  seems  to  have  been  largely  an  objective  one. 
Clay  never  failed  in  so  far  as  within  him  lay  to  feed 
the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked,  or  to  visit  those  in 
prison,  where  he  so  often  opened  the  bars.  He  was 
not  only  positive  in  his  mental  attitude  towards  hu 
manity,  but  he  never  failed  to  respond  to  any  appli 
cation  made  to  him.  When  the  haughty  of  Ken 
tucky  looked  on  the  slaves  as  mere  chattels,  Clay 
defended  the  slave  without  hesitation  and  without 
compensation.  When  influential  men  were  accused, 
and  most  attorneys  declined  to  appear  against  them, 
Clay  was  on  fire  to  secure  justice  for  the  oppressed. 
When  equivocation  might  have  helped  him  he  was 
inflexible.  These  positive  qualities  are  such  as  men 
admire  even  when  they  do  not  practise  them  them 
selves. 

If  a  trial  balance  be  made  of  Clay  by  rules  of 
378 


HENRY   CLAY   THE   MAN 

political  book-keeping,  it  might  be  possible  to  show 
that  his  errors  and  failures  outweighed  his  suc 
cesses.  But  who  would  enter  upon  such  a  task? 
Clay  has  been  dead  long  enough  to  be  judged  in  a 
larger  way. 

No  such  personal  force  as  Clay  existed  in  the  first  \ 
half  of  our  history.  Washington  was  worshipped,  * 
but  almost  entirely  from  afar.  Jefferson  was  largely 
the  embodiment  of  a  reaction.  Clay  was  the  first 
statesman  in  this  country  who  really  came  deep  into 
the  affections  of  the  American  people.  Every  one 
of  his  admirers  looked  upon  him  as  his  best  friend, 
and  his  defeats  were  in  the  nature  of  personal  be 
reavements.  He  first  taught  the  real  democracy, — 
not  the  mob  nor  the  few, — but  the  real  thinking 
middle  classes,  to  ponder  on  public  questions  and 
reason  for  themselves.  His  seed  was  sown  on  good 
ground,  and  in  time  it  brought  forth  more  than  an 
hundred  fold,  though  he  unfortunately  could  not 
live  to  witness  the  triumph  of  his  cherished  prin 
ciples. 

If  Henry  Clay  had  been  alive  in  1861  he  would 
have  been  as  staunch  for  the  Union  as  he  was  in 
1812,  and  his  persuasive  argument  and  glorification 
of  the  blessings  of  the  Union  would  have  been  no 
less  potent  than  the  Miltonian  tones  of  Webster. 
It  was  Clay  who,  more  than  any  other  man  up  to 
the  time  of  his  death,  helped  to  erase  from  the  map 
those  arbitrary  lines  which  divided  the  nation  into 
republics  of  partial  independence.  Webster  was  an 
apostle  ;  Clay  was  a  founder.  Clay  constantly  feared 
that  the  Union  might  be  broken  up,  but  never  in 
all  his  career  did  he  give  sanction  to  anything  which 
would  provoke  this.  While  Webster  talked,  Clay 
worked.  At  times  he  may  have  been  over-anxious 
or  have  used  the  wrong  methods,  and  in  the  end 

379 


THE   TRUE   HENRY   CLAY 

encouraged  the  secessionists  rather  than  repressed 
them  ;  but  no  man  can  read  his  speeches  and  letters 
from  the  first  time  he  appeared  on  the  cart-tail  in 
Lexington  to  his  last  utterance  before  the  Legisla 
ture  at  Frankfort  more  than  fifty  years  later,  without 
feeling  that  in  him  was  bound  up  confidence  in  the 
Union,  and  that  many  of  its  hopes  were  centred  in 
him.  When  the  hour  of  trial  came  none  of  those 
who  thought  that  the  situation  called  for  secession 
dared  to  invoke  the  name  of  Henry  Clay. 


380 


INDEX 


ADAMS,  John  Quincy,  minister  at  St.  Petersburg,  76;  peace 
commissioner,  77 ;  quarrels  with  Clay,  80 ;  entries  in  diary, 
86;  Texas  boundary,  99;  elected  President,  124,  126,  136; 
appoints  Clay  Secretary  of  State,  136 

ADAMS,  William,  peace  commissioner,  78 

Alabama  Letters  of  Clay,  184 

American  system.     See  Protection 

Ancestry  of  Clay,  as  alleged,  32 

Anti-Masonic  Party,  174 

ARCHER,  Senator,  colloquy  with  Clay,  299 

Ashland,  home  of  Clay,  30,  48,  161 ;  slavery  at,  187 ;  Clay 
resting  at,  203,  207 ;  electors  meet  at,  210 ;  Clay  at,  329,  330 

B 

Bank,  National,  Clay  attacks,  62;  upholds,  175;  recharter 
passed  by  Congress,  178;  vetoed  by  Jackson,  179;  deposits 
removed,  255 ;  Clay's  relations  with,  267-285  ;  Calhoun  on, 
272 ;  Jackson's  relations  with,  278 ;  in  Tyler's  administra 
tion,  323 

Bankrupt  law,  325 

BARRY,  Postmaster-General,  Clay  defends,  160 

BAYARD,  James  A.,  peace  commissioner,  77 

BENTON,  Thomas  H.,  acts  in  duel  between  Randolph  and 
Clay,  106;  defends  Clay,  124,  134;  characteristics  of,  161 ; 
a  slaveholder,  181 ;  elected  Senator,  239 ;  opposes  compro 
mise,  243;  mentioned,  255;  opposes  the  triumvirate,  255; 
champion  of  Jackson,  258;  secures  passage  of  expunging 
resolution,  265 ;  attacks  bank,  270 ;  specie  circular,  281 ; 
thought  radical  on  the  currency,  282;  colloquy  with  Clay, 
292,  303;  opposes  land  surplus  distribution,  306;  against 
compromise,  346,  350;  affair  with  Foote,  352 

BIDDLE,  Nicholas,  mentioned,  272,  276,  277 

Bills.  See  Missouri  Compromise,  Land  Surplus  distribution, 
Omnibus  bill,  Bank,  National;  Bankruptcy  law,  Pro 
tection 

BIRNEY,  James  G.,  opposes  Clay,  152,  185,  191 

Birth  of  Henry  Clay,  22 

BLAIR,  Francis  P.,  on  corrupt  bargain,  137 

BRECKINRIDGE,  John,  befriends  Clay,  34 


INDEX 

BRECKINRIDGE,  John  C,  eulogizes  Clay,  370 
BROOKE,  Attorney-General,  preceptor  of  Clay,  24 
BUCHANAN,  James,  visits  Clay,  128;    mentioned,   141,  247; 

colloquy  with  Clay,  301 
BURR,  Aaron,  Clay  counsel  for,  42 


Cabinet,  Clay  declines  position  in,  99,  322;   enters,  138 

CALHOUN,  John  C.,  enters  House  ^  70 ;  Vice-President,  125; 
Secretary  of  State,  181 ;  protectionist,  217;  colloquy  with 
Clay,  225,  294;  on  nullification,  230;  relations  with  Jack 
son,  239;  mentioned,  248;  relations  with  Clay,  240;  bank 
policy,  272;  on  Texas,  316;  on  compromises  of  1850,  345; 
in  Senate,  334;  last  speech  on  compromises,  345 

CASTLEREAGH,  Lord,  on  peace,  78 

Censure  of  Jackson  by  Senate,  258;   expunged,  262 

Characteristics  of  Clay,  personal,  157-171 

Children  of  Clay,  31,  32 

Civil  Service,  Jackson's  conduct  of,  179 

CLAY,  children  of  Henry,  31,  32 

CLAY,  Cassius  Marcellus,  mentioned,  32;   fight,  39 

CLAY,  Henry,  birth,  22;  incidents  of  youth,  22,  23,  24; 
education,  24;  removal  to  Lexington,  24;  as  a  copyist, 
29;  marriage,  30;  children,  31,  32;  alleged  ancestry,  32; 
experiences  as  a  lawyer,  34;  his  debts,  39;  counsel  for 
Burr,  42;  as  a  farmer,  44;  debts  paid,  46;  as  a  horse- 
breeder,  49;  slaves  at  Ashland,  53;  his  live  stock,  53; 
first  appointment  as  Senator,  56 ;  visits  Washington,  57 ; 
second  appointment  to  Senate,  59;  speaks  on  protection, 
60;  elected  to  House  of  Representatives,  63;  chosen 
Speaker,  65 ;  speaks  for  sailors'  rights,  70 ;  wants  a  larger 
navy,  71 ;  suggested  as  commander-in-chief,  72 ;  visits 
recruiting-stations,  73 ;  still  for  war,  74 ;  peace  commissioner, 
77;  quarrels  at  Ghent,  79;  holds  out  against  British  de 
mands,  84 ;  signs  peace  treaty,  87 ;  meets  Madame  de  Stael, 
88 ;  election  to  Speakership,  90 ;  hard  fight  for  re-election, 
96 ;  speaks  for  Grecian  liberty,  98 ;  visited  by  Lafayette, 
98;  declines  Cabinet  position,  99;  defends  South  Ameri 
can  republics,  100;  attacks  Jackson,  102;  as  a  duellist,  104- 
123  ;  candidate  for  President,  ^35 ;  accused  of  corrupt  bar 
gain,  124-129;  Secretary  of  State,  138;  retires  to  private 
life,  1427-  views  on  slavery,  145-156;  personal  character 
istics,  157-171 ;  incident  with  Captain  Marryatt,  159 ; 
Presidential  candidate,  172;  re-enters  Senate,  172;  refuses 
to  run  as  Anti-Mason,  -174;  political  programme  in-iS^- 
32,  1^5;  defeated  for  President,  179;  nominated  again. 
179;  campaign  of  1844,  i2&:  defeated,  IQQJ  cheated  of 
nomination  in  igdo,  195.;  refuses  Secretaryship  of  State, 
197 ;  defeated  in  1848  for  nomination,  201 ;  religious  views, 
382 


INDEX 

209;  speeches  on  protection,  218,  221,  224;  colloquy  with 
Calhoun,  225;  attacks  Gallatin,  226;  Compromise  tariff, 
232;  compromises  discussed,  235,  245;  compromises  of 
1850,  246;  relations  with  the  triumvirate,  248;  opposes 
Jackson  and  Benton,  259;  censure  resolution  expunged, 
262;  Clay  and  Jackson,  263,  265;  bank  champion,  267- 
285 ;  currency  policy,  281 ;  his  connection  with  the  bank, 
284;  last  encounter  with  Randolph,  287;  colloquy  with 
Smith,  288;  with  Van  Buren,  290;  with  Benton,  292; 
with  Calhoun,  294;  with  King,  298;  with  Archer,  299; 
"corporal's  guard,"  300;  land  policy,  303-319;  insulted  by 
Jackson,  307;  takes  charge  of  Whig  party,  312;  Indian 
policy,  314;  on  slavery,  317;  on  use  of  mails,  318;  party 
dictator,  320;  programme,  323;  opposed  by  Tyler,  323; 
remarks  on  bank  bill  veto,  326;  farewell  speech  in  Senate, 
326;  joins  the  church,  331;  elected  to  Senate,  333;  com 
promises  of  1850  introduced,  340;  speeches  on,  342;  rela 
tions  with  Taylor,  347;  fugitive  slave  law,  349,  354;  dis 
pute  with  Benton,  350;  goes  to  Newport,  353;  champion 
of  the  Union,  358;  even  against  Kentucky,  362;  goes  to 
Cuba,  366 ;  returns  to  Washington,  367 ;  sees  Kossuth, 
368 ;  illness  and  death,  369 ;  funeral,  371 ;  final  estimate 
of,  374-379 

CLAY,  James  B.,  mentioned,  32 ;  diplomatic  appointment,  347 ; 
Confederate,  365 

CLAY,  John  M.,  mentioned,  32 ;  takes  over  his  father's  horses, 
50;  letter  from  Lincoln,  365;  loyal,  365 

CLAY,  Mrs.  Henry,  as  a  farmer,  33;  leaves  homestead,  54; 
defends  Clay's  gambling,  163;  relative  of  Benton,  239; 
too  feeble  to  go  to  Washington,  369;  all  night  with  hus 
band's  corpse,  371 

CLAY,  Henry,  Jr.,  mentioned,  170,  198,  347 

CLAY,  Thomas  H.,  mentioned,  31 ;  hemp  experiments,  45 ; 
loyal,  365;  nurses  his  father  in  last  sickness,  369 

CLAY,  Thomas  H.,  Jr.,  mentioned,  55 

CLAYTON,  John  M.,  connected  with  compromise  of  1833,  241 

Colloquies,  Clay  and  others,  286-302 

Commander-in-Chief,  Clay  suggested  as,  72 

Compensation  law,  95 

Compromises,  235-247,  333-356;  opposed  by  Benton,  243; 
346,  350;  compromise  tariff,  232;  of  1850,  246 

Copyist,  Clay's  early  occupation,  29 

Corrupt  bargain,  124 

"  Corporal's  Guard"  mentioned,  300..,. 

CRAWFORD,  W.  H.,  candidate  for  Pr  jjdency,  125 ;  paralyzed, 
127  £& 

CRITTENDEN,  John  J.,  opposes  Clay  in  1848,  201 ;  subsequent 
relations  with  Clay,  211,  347 

Cuba  visited  by  Clay,  366 

Currency  policy  of  Clay,  281 

38.3 


INDEX 

D 

DAVIS,  Jefferson,  in  Senate,  335 ;   opposes  compromise,  346 
Death  of  Clay,  369 
Debts  of  Clay,  39 
Defeats  of  Clay,  194-213 
DE  STAEL,  Madame,  Clay  meets,  88  * 
Dictator,  Clay  as,  320-332 
DOUGLASS,  Stephen  A.,  "the  little  giant,"  336 
Drink,   Clay's  habits,   162 

Duels  with  Humphrey  Marshall,  Colonel  Daviess,  and  John 
Randolph,  104-123 

E 

EATON,  John  H.,  KREMER  letter,  131 ;   Secretary  of  War,  176 
EATON,  Mrs.  John  H.,  her  career,  176;   mentioned,  253,  308 
Education  of  Henry  Clay,  24 
EMBREE,  Moses,  mentioned,  317 
Estimate  of  Clay,  374 
Expunging  resolution  passed,  262 


Farewell  speech  to  Senate,  Clay's,  326 

FILLMORE,   Millard,   writes   Clay,  208;     favors   compromise, 

352 ;    supported  by  Clay,  368 
FOOTE,  Henry,  Senator,  on  compromise,  341 ;  assaults  Benton, 

352 

Freemasons,  opposition  to  in  politics,  173 
Fugitive  slave  law,  339,  349,  354 
Funeral  of  Clay,  371 

G 

GALLATIN,  Albert,  Secretary  of  Treasury,  67 ;    report,  71 ; 

peace  commissioner,  77;    at  Ghent,  79;    attacked  by  Clay, 

226 ;  mentioned,  267 
GAMBIER,  Lord,  peace  commissioner,  78 
Gambling  by  Clay,  163 

GARRISON,  Wm.  Lloyd,  mentioned,  153,  185,  317,  318 
Ghent,  peace  commission  at,  77 
GOULBURN,  Henry,  peace  commissioner,  78 
Great  Britain  and  the  war  of  1812,  64;    war  against,   71; 

peace  negotiations,  77 
Greek  liberties,  Clay  speaks  for,  98 
GREELEY,  Horace,  mentioned,  152,  164 
GUNN,  Rev.  Wm.,  mentioned,  164 

H 

HARRISON,  William  Henry,  mentioned,  194,  256,  322;    nomi 
nated  for  President  over  Clay,  196 
384 


INDEX 

HART  family,  the,  44 

HART,  Lavinia,  marries  Henry  Clay,  30.     See  Mrs.  Henry 

Clay 

HAYNE,  Robert  Y.,  debate  with  Webster,  175 
Horse  breeder,  Clay  as,  49 

I 

Impressment  of  American  seamen,  73.    See,  also,  peace  nego 
tiations  at  Ghent,  76-89;    and  Sailor's  Rights 
Indian  policy  of  Clay,  314 
Internal  improvements,  Clay's  interest  in,  57,  92,  93 

J 

JACKSON,  Andrew,  troubles  in  Florida,  101 ;  attacked  by 
Clay,  102;  candidate  for  President,  125;  incensed  at  Clay, 
128;  again  a  candidate,  141,  172;  upholds  Mrs.  Eaton, 
177;  the  civil  service,  179;  signs  tariff  bill,  229;  opposes 
nullification,  230;  opposes  Calhoun,  240,  244;  mentioned, 
253 ;  censured  for  removing  deposits,  258 ;  censure  resolu 
tion  expunged,  262;  the  Seminole  affair,  263;  relations 
with  the  bank,  278;  land  distribution  policy,  306;  insults 
Clay,  307 ;  Clay  and  land  policy,  313 

JESUP,  General,  acts  in  duel  with  Clay,  108 

K 

Kentucky,  early  history  of,  25-28 ;  Clay  brags  of,  82 ;  slavery 
in,  153;  early  newspaper  advertisements,  155;  erects  monu 
ment  to  Clay,  371 ;  refuses  to  repair  statue,  372 

KING,  Senator,  mentioned,  319 

Kissing  of  Clay,  169,  344,  353 

KOSSUTH,  Louis,  visits  Clay,  368 

KREMER,  George,  on  corrupt  bargain,  130 


LAFAYETTE,  Marquis  de,  visits  Clay,  98,  160 

Land  surplus  distribution,  favored  b'y  Clay,  175,  243,  303- 

319;  bill  passed,  310 
Lawyer,  Clay  as,  34-43 
Lexington,  Kentucky,  Clay  removes  to,  24;  Clay's  practice 

in,  33;    speech  at,  198;    burial  at,  371.     See  also  Phoenix 

Hotel. 

Liberty  Party,  185 

LINCOLN,  Abraham,  writes  to  John  M.  Clay,  365 
LUNDY,  Benjamin,  on  slavery,  317 

M 

MADISON,  James,  reopens  trade,  66 ;  hesitates,  68 ;  mentioned, 
268 

»5  385 


INDEX 

Mails,  use  of  by  abolitionists,  318 

MARCY,  William  L.,  255 

Market-house  speech  of  Clay  at  Lexington,  198 

Marriage  of  Clay,  30 

Marryatt,  Captain,  at  Gay's  home,  159 

MARSHALL,  Humphrey,  duel  with  Clay,  105 

MARSHALL,  Tom,  refuses  to  speak  against  Clay,  166 

MARTINEAU,  Harriet,  mentioned,  160 

Mendenhall  speech  of  Clay,  154 

Mexico's  position  as  to  Texas,  181,  315 

Missouri  Compromise  mentioned,  102,  181 ;    described,  236 

MONROE,  James,  Clay  opposes,  94;   on  Texas,  99 

N 

NAPOLEON,  attitude  towards  America,  65;  duplicity  of,  67; 
Continental  system,  69;  Moscow  campaign,  76;  at  Elba, 

83 

National  bank.     See  Bank,  National 

Navy,  Clay  advocates,  71 

Newport,  visited  by  Clay,  353 

Nominations  for  President  of  Clay,  172,  179;  refused,  195, 
201 

Nullification,  Calhoun's  theory,  230,  345.  See,  also,  Com 
promises 


Omnibus  bill,  340 

O'NEILL,  Peggy.    See  Mrs.  John  H.  Eaton 


Panama  Congress,  139 

Peace  commission,  77 

Peace  declared  with  Great  Britain,  87 

Personal  characteristics  of  Clay,  157-171 

Phoenix  Hotel  mentioned,  33,  150,  167,  331 

Politeness  of  Clay,  167 

POLK,  James  K.,  President,  185,  199 

Presidential    candidate,    Clay,    126,    179,    190;     defeated    for 

nomination,  195,  201 
Protection^  Clay's  first  interest  in,  44;    first  speech  on,  60; 

duel  over,  106;    Clay  advocates,   175;    tariff  bill  of   1832 

passed,    178;     Clay's   views   of,   214;     opposed   by    South 

Carolina,  231 ;    Clay's  compromise,  232 

Q 

Quarrels  of  Gay  with  others,  286 
QUINCY,  Josiah,  attacks  Clay,  63 

386 


INDEX 

R 

Raleigh  letter,  182 

RANDOLPH,  John,  in  the  House,  70 ;    mentioned,  91 ;    duel 

with  Clay,  106;    mentioned,  140,  257;    last  encounter  with 

Clay,  287 

Recharter  of  National  Bank,  178 
Recruits  for  War  of  1812,  Clay's  speeches,  73 
Religious  Views  of  Clay,  209;    joins  church,  331 
Retirement  of  Clay,  142,  326 
RUSSELL,  Jonathan,  peace  commissioner,  77 


Sailors'  Rights,  Clay  on,  70,  74,  84,  372.  See,  also,  Impress 
ment 

SCOTT,  Winfield,  General,  sent  to  South  Carolina,  242 

Secretary  of  State,  Clay  as,  138 

Seminoles,  Jackson's  conduct  with,  263 

Senate,  Clay's  membership  of,  56,  59,  172;  farewell  to,  326; 
last  election  to,  333 

SERGEANT,  John,  Vice-Presidential  candidate,  172 

SEWARD,  W.  H.,  Senator  in  1850,  336;  opposes  compromise, 
346 

Slavery,  Clay's  position  on,  145 ;  president  of  American 
Colonization  Society,  152;  at  Ashland,  53,  187.  See  head 
ings  under  Compromises ;  also  Garrison,  Birney,  and  Em- 
bree;  Clay's  views  on,  317 

SMITH,  Robert,  Secretary  of  State,  67 

SMITH,  Samuel,  Senator,  67 ;    colloquy  with  Clay,  288 

South  American  republics  defended  by  Clay,  100 

South  Carolina  threatens  secession,  230,  244,  306,  358 

Speakership,  Clay's  elections  to,  65,  90 

Specie  circular,  281 

TANEY,  Roger  B.,  removes  deposits,  255,  273 

Tariff.     See  Protection 

TAYLOR,  Zachary,  in  Texas,  199 ;  candidate,  201 ;  writes 
Clay,  202;  Clay's  relations  with,  211;  policy  in  regard  to 
territories,  338;  against  compromise,  346 


Texas,  boundary,  99;    Clay's  views  on,  152;    annexation  of 
proposed,  180;    Clay's  position  on,  183,  184,  315;    Calhoun 
and  Texas,  316;    Claims  to  territory,  339 
Triumvirate,  the,  248-266,  333.     See  Clay,  Webster,  Calhoun 
TYLER,    John,    apostate    Whig,    180;     nominated    for    Vice- 
President,    196 ;    bank  policy,  279 ;     defended   by   Archer, 
299;    Texas  policy,  338;   opposes   Clay  programme,  323; 
vetoes  bank  bill,  324;    remarks  about  Clay,  325 

387 


Unionist,  Clay  as,  358 


INDEX 
U 


VAN  BUREN,  Martin,  mentioned,  94 ;  Clay's  philippic  against, 
spoiled,  159;  upholds  Mrs.  Eaton,  177;  rejected  as  min 
ister,  178;  mentioned,  253,  254,  282;  colloquy  with  Clay, 
290;  elected  President,  311 

W 

War  Hawk,  Clay  as,  64-75 

War  of  1812,  Clay's  position,  64 ;  taxes,  71 ;  army  for,  71 ; 
declared,  71;  insisted  on,  74;  unsuccessful  on  land,  76; 
peace  overtures,  76;  ends,  87 

WATKINS,  Captain  Henry,  Clay's  step-father,  22,  24,  146 

WEBSTER,  Daniel,  mentioned,  171 ;  debate  with  Hayne,  175 ; 
Secretary  of  State,  197;  opposes  protection,  216;  men 
tioned,  239 ;  personal  habits,  249 ;  relations  with  Clay, 
250 ;  in  the  Cabinet,  256 ;  in  Tyler's  Cabinet,  325 ;  Seventh 
of  March  speech,  345;  opposed  by  Clay,  368 

WEED,  Thurlow,  on  Clay,  173;   against  Clay,  195 

WELLINGTON,  Duke  of,  on  American  war,  83 

Whig  Party,  nominates  Clay,  172 ;  loses  Pennsylvania,  179, 
180;  defeated,  192;  campaign  of  1836,  194;  Harrisburg 
convention,  195;  nominates  Taylor,  201,  211;  liquidates, 
212 ;  Tyler's  position,  233,  279 ;  in  Senate,  333 ;  last  cam 
paign  of,  368 

WHITE,  Hugh  L.,  resigns  from  Senate,  260 

WYTHE,  George,  chancellor,  preceptor  of  Clay,  24 

Y 

Youth  of  Clay,  incidents,  22,  23,  24 


THE   END 


388 


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